Description

Book Synopsis

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 of 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.



Trade Review
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. -- Irish Times

A Drop of Patience

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    £9.49

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    RRP £9.99 – you save £0.50 (5%)

    Order before 4pm tomorrow for delivery by Tue 7 Jul 2026.

    A Paperback / softback by William Melvin Kelley

    4 in stock

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      Publisher: Quercus Publishing
      Publication Date: 03/10/2019
      ISBN13: 9781787478077, 978-1787478077
      ISBN10: 1787478076
      Also in:
      Contemporary Fiction

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      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 of 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.



      Trade Review
      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. -- Irish Times

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