Queer literature tends to center coming out stories, the start of relationships, and second-chance romances. But in his new novel, Gregory A. Kompes asks the question: what happens in a decades-long partnership when one partner is diagnosed with dementia?
That novel is “Shards” and it arrives September 8. I sat down with Kompes to discuss long-term relationships, care-giving, and how to tell stories that mirror the fragmented nature of dementia itself (article continues below).
Watch Our Conversation
For Kompes “Shards” explores an under-explore part of queer life. “We tend not to spend much time with older characters,” he said. “Gay culture has always been youth culture. Most culture is youth culture, frankly. Straight culture is too. As I’m aging, many of the characters of my novels are aging as well. I think that’s part of lived experience, you write what you know.”
More than that, most novels do not explore memory loss such as dementia or Alzheimer’s. Kompes’ mother passed away from living with dementia just last December.
“I was experiencing this with […] not just her, but the other residents in the place where she lived,” he explained.
However, while the novel is deeply personal, it is still a work of fiction and not based on actual people.
Writing Along With His Students
It was during his writing workshops that Kompes offers at libraries and online, that “Shards” started to appear. In the workshops, Kompes taught his students Brian Kiteley’s “3am Epiphany” writing prompt. It’s designed to encourage 300-600 word responses. As they wrote, so did he.
“[And] these characters showed up for me,” he said. “Allister and Gede showed up and I just started writing to the prompts using them as my fodder.”
Allister and Gede (which means “second son” in the Philippines) meet in midlife and then go on to make a life together that spans over three decades. An experience that not enough authors interrogate.
“I’ve been with my husband now for 26 years,” Kompes shared. “Some of the stuff that gets explored [in ‘Shards”] are the ideas of what’s it like to be in a relationship for a very long time. How does love change? How does sex change? How do we view the world from that older perspective?”
In the meantime, his research into dementia kept turning up the theme of “shards of memory.” Kompes realized that because of the short bursts of 300-600 words from the “3am” writing prompts, that was exactly what he had: shards of Allister’s memories. And so the novel is told from Allister’s perspective—his memories, his thoughts, his moments. Because of this, we experience Gede’s thoughts and emotions indirectly. There is his gentle care, but also his occasional frustration.
“There’s a moment where [a] teapot gets broken because Allister’s not in the room when it happens,” Kompes shared. “All of a sudden, he’s in tears. He’s just in tears because the teapot represents something else in their journey.”
“Shards” also considers the roles we each take on in a relationship. For example, how would we take on the role of being the caregiver if called on to do it?
“Personally, I think Allister wouldn’t do well if he had to be the caregiver, but who knows? You never know what you’re capable of until you’re in the moment.”
Another theme Kompes wanted to explore was to write the characters in such a way that just let them exist. “They didn’t have to explain themselves to anybody,” he explained. “They didn’t have to apologize for who they are. They’re just who they are, and they’ve been together a long time.”
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Gregory A. Kompes is the founder of The Writer Workshop and an award-winning bestselling writer of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. He has authored more than 20 books, including the Broadway series “Flash Mob,” “The Middleman,” “Tamberlaine,” and “Busker.” He teaches writing workshops through libraries and his online platform. More information about Kompes’ work and The Writer Workshop can be found at kompes.com.
