Shards

About This Audiobook

Allister and Gede's retirement plan: savor their remaining years on the pond behind their home and enjoy the visiting birds and butterflies while drinking tea in Gede's garden. Together they experience their final challenge—Allister's journey into dementia, where the fragments of a life become a masterpiece of love. In the quiet of their Georgia garden, Allister remembers his life—a career teaching literature at Columbia, decades together with Gede in New York City, traveling the world, to Rome, to Venice, to London, and so many places with lifelong dear friends—the only way he can: in fragments. As Allister's lucid moments give way to those of confusion and loss, decimating a lifetime of memories, Gede transforms from lover and husband to witness and caregiver. Through this last passage of their life together, both men discover an even deeper meaning of love. Allister's final journey leaves the reader glad to have known Allister and Gede. This gentle story promises wisdom at the center of extreme pain. It paints a portrait of a man who loved and was loved by the people in his life. Love being the last thing to be forgotten.

About the Author

Gregory A. Kompes (MFA, MS Ed.), founder of The Writer Workshop, is an award winning and bestselling author of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. He's the author of the Broadway series that includes Flash Mob, The Middle Man, Tamburlaine, Obsequies, and Busker. Become a VIP Reader at https://Kompes.com.

Reviews

Brilliant. In Shards, Kompes explores sharp, deeply-touching slivers of life through Allister's blurring lens. A first in queer literature, and his finest work.

The title of this novel perfectly captures its ethos. Beautiful fragments of a life well lived spread out for the reader to assemble like a broken china tea pot. Bittersweet, lyrical, and poignant, Shards invites readers to savor one man's life through glimpses of his past and memories of the people who populated it. Allister's life unfolds like a recipe for treasuring the moments that quietly pass most people by.

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