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.