A Drop of Patience
Formats & Editions
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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Praise for A Drop of Patience
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A Drop Of Patience is a moving, painful and stinging experience. - New York Times Book Review
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In this, as in his earlier books, Mr. Kelley writes with strength, simplicity and absolute honesty. - New York Herald Tribune
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Kelley wrote intricate novels that identified with the rejection of dominant social orders. - Public Books
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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
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The Lost Giant of American Literature. - New Yorker
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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
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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.
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