Denise Lewis Patrick

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.

A Matter of Souls

Dorian Avers

This book was good, but it lacked a bit of magic-not literal magic, more like storytelling. I liked the short story format, that varied in gender and age. I did notice that Patrick always paid close attention to colored eyes, and described them with a sort of beauty that she doesn't talk about with brown or dark eyes. And I wonder where the line of intentional and personal was with those descriptions. Because Patrick herself is black with dark eyes, I wonder if she heard so many more compliments directed at people with colored eyes and light skin and that's just subconsciously how she writes. Also, she rarely referred to people as black, they were always a shade of brown.

A Matter of Souls

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