A Drop of Patience

At the age of five, a blind African-American boy is handed over to a brutal state home. Here Ludlow Washington will suffer for eleven years, until his prodigious musical talent provides him an unlikely ticket back into the world.

The property of a band, playing for down-and-outs in a southern dive, Ludlow's pioneering flair will take him to New York and the very top of the jazz scene - where his personal demons will threaten to drag him back down to the bottom.

A DROP OF PATIENCE is the story a gifted and damaged man entirely set apart - by blindness, by race, by talent - who must wrestle with adversity and ambition to generate the acceptance and self-worth that have always eluded him.

“A Drop Of Patience is a moving, painful and stinging experience. - New York Times Book ReviewIn this, as in his earlier books, Mr. Kelley writes with strength, simplicity and absolute honesty. - New York Herald TribuneKelley wrote intricate novels that identified with the rejection of dominant social orders. - Public BooksWithout being imitative he has shown that he belongs to that small company of modern authors who possess the accomplished touch of the creative artist. - AP NewsfeaturesThe Lost Giant of American Literature. - New YorkerKelley blended fantasy and fact to construct an alternative world whose sweep and complexity drew comparisons to James Joyce and William Faulkner. - New York Times”

A Drop Of Patience is a moving, painful and stinging experience. - New York Times Book Review

In this, as in his earlier books, Mr. Kelley writes with strength, simplicity and absolute honesty. - New York Herald Tribune

Kelley wrote intricate novels that identified with the rejection of dominant social orders. - Public Books

Without being imitative he has shown that he belongs to that small company of modern authors who possess the accomplished touch of the creative artist. - AP Newsfeatures

The Lost Giant of American Literature. - New Yorker

Kelley blended fantasy and fact to construct an alternative world whose sweep and complexity drew comparisons to James Joyce and William Faulkner. - New York Times

Kelley is as good on disability as he is on race, and life for a blind person is skillfully depicted in his novel . . . There is plenty to recommend in its moving, honest account of a young black man trying to find his way in a hostile world . . . A thoughtful, inventive writer who was well before his time.

Born in New York in 1937, William Melvin Kelley was an African-American writer known for his satirical explorations of race relations in America. He was just twenty-four years old when his debut novel, A Different Drummer, was first published in 1962, earning him critical comparisons to William Faulkner and James Baldwin. A Drop Of Patience, first published in 1965, is his second novel. Considered part of the Black Arts Movement, Kelley was in 2014 officially credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with coining the political term 'woke,' in a 1962 New York Times article entitled 'If You're Woke You Dig It'. He died in February of 2017, aged 79.

At the age of five, a blind African-American boy is handed over to a brutal state home. Here Ludlow Washington will suffer for eleven years, until his prodigious musical talent provides him an unlikely ticket back into the world.The property of a band, playing for down-and-outs in a southern dive, Ludlow's pioneering flair will take him to New York and the very top of the jazz scene - where his personal demons will threaten to drag him back down to the bottom. A DROP OF PATIENCE is the story a gifted and damaged man entirely set apart - by blindness, by race, by talent - who must wrestle with adversity and ambition to generate the acceptance and self-worth that have always eluded him.

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