Naked in Winter

Through its two major metaphors nakedness and winter this story opens with a Jake Ackerman roughly three years older than he was at the end of Make Me a Hero. But in a wintry world where everywhere he turns he seems to need someone to express love to him he finds that his very own protection against the cold prevents others from reaching into him to touch his fine sensitivity. Only when he connects with Roberta whose own defenselessness against a harsh life echoes within him does he buy her a gift whose expensiveness lies within its words not its gold.