The Patient Body

The Patient Body: A Personal Narrative in Pieces chronicles one man’s journey as he attempts to lead a balanced life as 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.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“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

“What Sebastian Matthews knows: our bodies possess immeasurable wisdoms, yet the array of stories inside us must crack open in order to reveal their valences. Left unexamined, our bodies are a series of fault lines: exposed and subject to explosion. With a feeling intellect, Sebastian, as artist, father, husband, son, and friend, courageously peers further than anyone I know into the spaces we are most vulnerable in our relationships. He tells his stories such that the myths around our bodies are dismantled. Here is a portrait of a man, once a patient, fed on art, love, story, and song. The Patient Body offers the most tender exchanges, and I am floored.”—Major Jackson, author of Razzle Dazzle