Dearest Departed, I do not know when I decided I was going to write. I am not a writer. You are. You were.
Honorary twins Ally and Andy, born at the start and end of the same year, have always shared everything — until Ally dies, his passing ruled a suicide by overdose. A year later, Andy starts her first year at college without her other half, writing letters to Ally as she makes new friends who know nothing about him, falls in love for the first time, and strives to embrace her bisexuality and her Indigenous identity. When Andy discovers the poems Ally hid in their room, she pieces together these remaining fragments to make sense of her brother’s life — and his death.
A story told through letters and poems, The Fragments that Remain is a heart-wrenching and hopeful debut novel from Mackenzie Angeconeb.
“[The] Fragments that Remain takes the reader on a candid journey of brokenness and awakenings. Through layers of grief, the narrator navigates the path toward hope and healing with beautifully authentic thoughts, feelings and experiences. This novel, the first from Mackenzie Angeconeb, is a triumph.”
“This powerful epistolary novel explores grief, identity, and the enduring bonds of familial love... Just like the title says, Angeconeb has stylistically used fragments to tell the story of a brother and sister, one living, one dead. The use of poetry and prose, short and longform, gives the character, Andy, space to figure out her identity, her relationship with family and friends, and what it means to learn how to live as one. Angeconeb achieves this without giving the reader all the words but all the feelings.”