A Matter of Souls - Hardcover

Patrick, Denise Lewis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761392807 ISBN 13: 9780761392804

Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab ®, 2014

Synopsis

From the shores of Africa to the bowels of a transatlantic ship to a voting booth in Mississippi to the jungles of Vietnam, all human connection is a matter of souls.

In this stirring collection of short stories, Denise Lewis Patrick considers the souls of black men and women across centuries and continents. In each, she takes the measure of their dignity, describes their dreams, and catalogs their fears.

Brutality, beauty, laughter, rage, and love all take their turns in each story, but the final impression is of indomitable, luminous, and connected souls.

About this title

About the Author

Denise Lewis Patrick grew up in Louisiana and now lives in New Jersey. She has been both a writer and editor in various areas of the publishing industry. Visit her online at www.deniselewispatrick.com.

Review

"Eight short stories with long memory cut to the quick―all the more as they could be true.
Patrick's tales from the distant and not-so-distant past shed fresh light on interracial and intraracial conflicts that shape and often distort the realities of African-Americans. The youthful characters possess passion and purpose, even if they remain misguided or too proud to live safely within their historically situated habitats. In one story, 'Colorstruck,' Hazel absorbs everything Miss Clotille, her light-skinned, middle-class Negro employer, has taught her: how to say etiquette instead of manners and teal and magenta instead of green and purple, and to wear shoes in public. Living in the shadow of Clotille and her five fair-skinned sisters, Hazel believes that blackness will impede her upward social mobility. She loses her job and nearly loses her life by placing her faith in 'Beauty Queen Complexion Clarifier...guaranteed to brighten, lighten and heighten your natural beauty!' As the visage of the 'ideal Colored woman' floats through this tale, it illuminates the multifaceted sources of self-hatred and enmity within black families around skin color. The plots and characters change from one story to the next, but each one artfully tells a poignant truth without flinching.

Shocking, informative and powerful, this volume offers spectacular literary snapshots of black history and culture." ―starred, Kirkus Reviews

(Journal)

"This debut collection presents eight stories in which the protagonists have a moment to decide how they want to live their lives and establish the moral direction of their existence. Seven draw on the black experience in America, taking readers into the Deep South from the days of slavery through the Civil War and Jim Crow laws. The titular (and least effective) story introduces a Spanish merchant who acknowledges his part in the African slave trade. While the prose in these compelling narratives is sometimes pedestrian, the complexity of each moment marks its power. Here readers meet Covington and Beesi, a man and his wife who, despite attacks and threats from the KKK, attempt to continue the legally inherited cobbler’s business left to Covie by his white father. A hundred years later, as Elise's brother fights for his country in Vietnam, she must invade a doctor's 'Whites Only' waiting room to save her mother from dying. In another story, sixteen-year-old Hazel sees her future as one defined by white society. A domestic worker, Hazel uses bleaching cream to lighten her skin and follows the patronizing advice of her white employer about her grammar and her friends; her older sister searches for a different future by engaging in prostitution. But aren't they both selling themselves in one way or another? Patrick leaves many such questions unasked, but the themes are there for the taking." ―The Horn Book Magazine

(Journal)

"In this collection, Patrick has written eight stories about the African American experience, past and present. All deal, in various ways, with the often violent indignities that blacks have suffered at the hands of whites since the days of slavery. Indeed, one of the stories, 'A Matter of Souls,' tells of the life-changing encounter of a Spanish grandee with a slave ship. A more contemporary story, 'Night Searching,' tells the tragic story of a mother who finds her son beaten to death. The most ambitious story in the collection, 'Son's Story,' begins when a 10-year-old boy witnesses his father being murdered for attempting to vote. Not all the stories are dark; 'The Season to Be Jolly,' for example, presents a portrait of a young slave who, thanks to her wit and gumption, manages to steal a march on her acidulous mistress. Not all of the stories are uniformly successful―several are slight and a few veer dangerously close to melodrama―but as a whole, the collection is compelling and thought provoking." ―Booklist

(Journal)

"This collection of short stories examines the African American experience from the years just after the Civil War through the Civil Rights era. There are several stories in this slim volume that are excellent additions to the body of historical fiction focusing on the Black American experience and would be especially welcome for helping to drive interdisciplinary study in upper grades. All of the work is threaded through with spirituality and romance as part of the everyday experience of people, helping to personalize and humanize stories of violence horrific and mundane. However, the selections are uneven in quality, the first four standing out as strong literary pieces and the remaining four offering diminishing returns until the final story, the only one not told from a black perspective, which ends the collection on a maudlin note. This would be a great book to introduce to a teacher to diversify classroom reading, but because it does not hang together as a cohesive whole, it would be less of a resource for students on the open shelves." ―School Library Journal

(Journal)

"In this collection of eight gut-wrenching short stories, Patrick explores the hardships endured by black men and women over two centuries of enslavement and oppression. Readers look through the eyes of a young woman whose mother's life is endangered in the colored waiting room of a doctor's office while the uninterested white doctors and nurses eat a leisurely lunch, and they feel the indignity of a Catholic schoolroom where a little black girl is punished for daring to look her teacher in the eye. They see the loss of reality experienced by a mother who sees her beloved son maimed and lynched. They mark the difficulty of trying to transcend an intraracial prejudice as a beautiful young woman loses a kidney to mercury poisoning caused by a lightening cream. They share the sickening realization with the accidental slaveholder that his seemingly benign business venture involves trafficking in human souls. They travel with a boy who witnesses his only male relatives shot to death on the steps of a library for demanding their right to vote, but who finds redemption after returning from Vietnam and realizing the strength of that legacy and the mandate it imposes on his future. Indeed, there is some measure of redemption in nearly every story, but it is almost always won through the shedding of blood. These are ugly truths exposed, brought to life with an immediacy that breaks through the gauzy filters of history. Teachers looking for a YA complement to Richard Wright will find the multiple characters' stories here both useful and bracing." ―The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

(Journal)

"This compilation of short stories features a variety of voices, including an African American soldier in the Vietnam War, slaves being traded from a cargo ship traveling from Africa to the United States, and a piano player during the jazz era. A Matter of Souls gives an insider view into the treatment, both cruel and loving, of African Americans throughout history. Readers who are studying about a specific time period would benefit from the perspective of a character affected by laws of segregation, as well as the thoughts that are not spoken aloud but ruminated upon while being beaten for simply being black.

"Patrick does a phenomenal job of relaying the hopes and dreams of those who were determined to overcome what was inevitable, especially when laws prevented them from being heard. Sensitive readers should be made aware of situations that are presented that describe violence against others which, while historically accurate, can be disconcerting. A Matter of Souls is a wonderful addition to any library, especially those who have patrons who are studying history. 4Q 4P J S. " ―VOYA

(Journal)

About this edition

• Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab ®
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0761392807
• ISBN 13: 9780761392804
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192