The Patient Body: A Personal Narrative in Pieces

by Sebastian Matthews

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636282442
Publisher:	Red Hen Press
Publication date:	05/27/2025
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher