The Patient Body
A Personal Narrative in Pieces
Published on 10. July 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
120 pages
978-1-63628-244-2 (ISBN)
Description
The Patient Body: A Personal Narrative in Pieces chronicles one man's journey as he attempts to lead a balanced life as a father, husband, friend, and literary citizen during traumatic times.
Written as a mosaic of 'flash' encounters, meditations, memories, and travel pieces, The Patient Body explores the ways the past resides inside the present and the present points to an uncertain future. An abecedary lies at the center of the book, composed for a former self, the twenty-six 'micro' sections create a dialogue that plays out across the divide created by a devastating car accident that changed everything.
Written as a mosaic of 'flash' encounters, meditations, memories, and travel pieces, The Patient Body explores the ways the past resides inside the present and the present points to an uncertain future. An abecedary lies at the center of the book, composed for a former self, the twenty-six 'micro' sections create a dialogue that plays out across the divide created by a devastating car accident that changed everything.
Reviews / Votes
"The Patient Body is a book of intimate encounters, each short piece like a living film in a dynamic scrapbook, the most honest social media feed you'll ever read. No doom-scrolling here-only life-scrolling, with a core message: 'You are who you are, and I love you for it. I am who I am, so love me for it . . .' I loved walking through our ever-precarious world with Matthews and this message as my guide, meeting neighbors and strangers, dogs and bears, artists and family members, and his own patient body, back from the brink of death. The personal and the ordinary can save us, friends, this book says-so look around you. It's a message that buoys."-Dana Levin, author of Now Do You Know Where You Are
"Matthews' luminous prose, rooted in place and rich sensory detail, tracks the major and minor impacts of life and the dividing lines the body crosses over to make a map of a nervous system."
-Sonya Huber, author of Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Pasadena
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 148 mm
Thickness: 7 mm
Weight
154 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-63628-244-2 (9781636282442)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
05/2025
Red Hen Press
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Sebastian Matthews is the author of the memoir-in-essays Beyond Repair: Living in a Fractured State and the hybrid collection Beginner's Guide to a Head-on Collision. His other publications include two books of poems, the memoir In My Father's Footsteps, the collage novel The Life and Times of American Crow, and a collaboration with photographer Charter Weeks entitled Travelogue. He works as a writing coach and leads workshops for the Great Smokies Writing Program in Asheville, NC.