French, Albert. Patches of Fire: A Story of War and Redemption.
New York, NY: Doubleday, 1998.
The following is from the back cover of Patches of Fire: A Story of War and Redemption:
With the same passion for truth and stunning honesty that marks his highly acclaimed fiction,
Albert French's remarkable memoir tells the story of a young man's experience with war. In
Vietnam, he encounters deaths beyond his understanding, only to return to a country torn by
racial unrest in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. As he struggles
to come to terms with the ghostly images of Vietnam that haunt his dreams, he makes a place
for himself as a black man in white America — first as a newspaper photographer,
then as a magazine publisher, and ultimately as a critically acclaimed novelist. Personal
and uniquely lyrical, Patches of Fire is a revealing exploration of the
black soldier's experience in Vietnam, the plight of the Vietnam veteran, and the
redemptive power of writing.
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