Remnants

by Céline Huyghebaert, Aleshia Jensen (Translation)

Finalist for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation

Winner of the 2022 VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award

Remnants is an exploration of our relationships with family and perception, told through a profound investigation of a father's life and sudden death. Employing various voices and hybrid forms—including dialogues, questionnaires, photographs, and dream documentation—Huyghebaert builds a fragmented picture of a father-daughter relationship that has been shaped by silences and missed opportunities.

The reader attempts to untangle fact from fiction: multiple versions of Huyghebaert's father are presented while remnants of his life disappear achingly quickly. What is left of someone who was not important enough to be archived? How do we talk about what no longer exists?

Winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for French-language fiction, Remnants asks essential questions we often only peer at from the corner of an eye; questions about the value of life in its duration and passing. This is a transcendent work, ideal for readers of Annie Ernaux, Sophie Calle, and Maggie Nelson.

Genres: Canada, Memoir

258 pages, Paperback

Published June 7, 2022

Reviews

[Margot · Rating 4 out of 5]

This innovative work of autofiction by Celine Huyghebaert and translated by Aleshia Jensen explores grief, memory, and the elusiveness of ever really knowing another person. Celine just misses saying goodbye to her father before he dies at the age of 48 from cancer and/or cirrhosis. In the aftermath of her loss, Celine funnels her grief into a project of understanding and imagining who her father was and what led to his early death. The result is a novel-as-archive, filled with documents such as transcripts of dialogues with family members, photographs, a handwriting analysis, a list of items he owned. In one of the most fascinating sections illustrative of the subjective nature of memory and 'facts', Celine asks several people (mostly her friends who never met her father) to complete a psychological profile answering questions about his childhood, significant life events, and whether or not he was happy. Their answers are insightful but also diverge, reflecting what these individuals believe about her father and they also become mixed up with their own memories and experiences of fathers and/or loss.
All together these various artifacts create a truly moving novel about the grieving process and a compassionate portrait of a difficult man whose own life was marked by loss. This book won the Governor General's Award for French-language fiction in 2019, and I can understand why. I am grateful that Book*hug chose to translate it and to Netgalley for the ARC.

[meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous book covering grief and the feeling of not fully knowing someone that you feel like you should have been closer to (if that makes sense). The narrator uses all kinds of sources and interviews with people who knew her father to try to get to know him and how he passed away. The form is unconventional but it is well worth the read!

[emma charlton · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 / Remnants is a work of autofiction (I think) that explores the life of the main character's father. The book includes memories, interviews, and photos that all come together to explain his life and death. Unfortunately, it was just too fragmented for me. Some parts seemed too impersonal, some repetitive, and I think the form just didn't work in a satisfying or comprehensive way. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

[Sydney Haas · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The things we know about each other are the things we wanted to bring with us and, most of all, what we wanted to leave behind.”

Remnants is such a brutally honest and nuanced exploration of what our loved ones leave behind. I appreciate that Huyghebaert doesn’t try to hide the ugliest feelings or the ugliest parts of a familial legacy. I’m also appreciative of the focus this text takes on the physical act of death itself. It’s an exploration of grief, certainly, but one that feels more rooted in the dying than in the memories of the life. Locating grief’s inception here makes for such a poignant interrogation of how loss and death live in our bodies and our memories.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

The whole is made up of the sum of the parts they say. This makes Remnants a fitting title for this work by Céline Huyghebaert. A dedication to her late father, the author gathers together different forms of information about her father to paint a picture of who he was.

The sudden death of her father in France, while she is on her way from Canada is emotional. In what appears to be a search for closure, Céline gathers together family and friends of her father and interviews them about his life. These dialogues show how each of his daughters, his ex-wife, a friend, a neighbour and others experienced Mario. In addition to these interviews, there are surveys, pictures, dreams and stories.

This work in translation won the Governor Generals Literary Award for French Language fiction. It is translated by Aleshia Jensen.

While there is no doubt that the author has succeeded in bringing her father’s life to light, I did find the format a bit difficult to follow. Just as I fell into a rhythm, it was disrupted and I had to reset. Readers more familiar with stories intersecting with art will likely be more comfortable.

Thank you to @bookhug_press and @zgstories for an ARC of Remnants in exchange for my honest opinions. Remnants publishes June 7, 2022.

[shelby · Rating 4 out of 5]

all i can say, is that this book was so incredibly moving from beginning to end. i don't frequent memoirs or non-fiction, but i'm so glad to have read the ARC of this (thank you netgalley). the hybrid forms to tell this story really added so much depth to the author's heartbreak. it really felt like you were watching the life of this man and his daughter unfold right in front of you.

for me in particular, the last third of this book moved me in such a way where i felt completely inconsolable. the author does such a stunning job at painting a realistic picture of grief, even more so by showing how each sister grieved differently. the book really resurfaced the grief of my own losses and made me remember so many small things i thought i'd forgotten. this truly is one of those books that seems to hold a mirror to you and articulates so much of what you've felt but could never quite articulate. it truly was the small things in this book that seemed to make me cry.

this book really is a wonderful dive into strained relationships and loss, and particularly how difficult it is to reconcile what you want to remember, with what you wish to forget.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read start to finish on a plane that sat for 3 hours on the tarmac and spent another 3 hours in relatively rough air… this one’s a mixed bag for me. Having lost my dad two years ago I can relate to much of the absence that the writer is trying to fill in.

[Danielle ♡ Tivoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and creative retelling of the complicated feelings of grief.

[Kyle C · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this novel (memoir? autofiction?), Celine Huyghebaert tries to reconstruct the life of her deceased father. She interviews family; she hunts down photos; she has a graphologist analyze his signature; she conducts psychological surveys to get the hearsay impressions of people who didn't know him; she keeps a record of her disturbed dreams. But her father is now unknowable. All she has are piecemeal souvenirs and contradictory memories (was he a sailer, a shoe-shiner or a railroad man? Did he gut pigs? Was he an absent father or a loving dad? Was he a taciturn grouch or a bon vivant?) Posters of Rene Magritte's paintings adorn street walls, an ambient reminder that the representation is not the thing itself. The memory of the father is not the father. His passport photo, a vacation picture, fond reminiscences are just ephemeral outliers in a lonelier life. The remnant is not the whole. In writing about her father (and in writing about the process of writing about her father), Huyghebaert shows how fraught it is to decipher the past and textualize the dead. He was an alcoholic who died young, but is that the portrait of a life? Huyghebaert doesn't want to just write about her father but obsessively document and inventory him.

This is a beautiful book. It's about archiving a father as much as grieving his death. I got this arc off netgalley.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling journey through grief, emphasizing the importance of protecting our fragile souls.

How did the book make me feel/think?

When I was born, my father was 56. Mum was 46. My friend Tony’s mother was 26 years younger than mine. I spent most of my time at Tony’s house or Chris’s house or →

Dad was an old hard man. He drank + smoked despite suffering a collapsed lung, which turned me into the neighbourhood’s anti-smoking advocate in my early teens.

In 1978, Cancer (dad) paid our family a visit. The Big C took our family on a seven-year roller coaster ride with a revolving door between the hospital and home. I watched dad die the day after turning 25 (1985), with a brother and my mother at my side.

When dad was in the hospital, I visited him at least 1200 times. I don’t remember a single visit or conversation. I don’t recall many conversations with my father at all.

In 2003, I discovered he wasn’t my birth father. I was born in a place of shame. I met my birth father in 2006 over lunch. Two weeks later, I had to inform him he wasn’t my birth father, and my father died (figuratively) a second time.

It doesn’t matter how I rearrange my photo albums; I can’t find a comforting narrative. I hate that reality.

Remnants is a compelling journey through grief, emphasizing the importance of protecting our fragile souls, bringing an understanding that no matter what we’ve gone through → it is humbling and human to understand life is complex. The people who were tasked with nurturing us are only humans themselves.

“There were happy times, but maybe not enough to make up for the unhappy ones. And I understand him better, as I get older. Life is hard.”

Remnants is a story about forgiveness and framing memories in the best fashion to continue living and hopefully thriving.

I forgive you dad → I just wish I knew who you are?
​
WRITTEN: 2 May 2022

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know whether to call this memoir or domestic fiction, but it is about a daughter losing her father and meticulously ruminating about their relationship, his past and his departure, on her own, in her head and through reams of interviews with others.

Huyghebaert goes at her investigation with all the creative literary devices she can come up with including psychological profiles, a handwriting report, reflective quotes, notes, and dialogues between a dozen interchanging characters which are related genetically and geographically and rather hard to keep track of in my opinion. I liked all the family photographs, and the way she delves into stigmatic aspects such as divorce, disease and addiction, straight on.

Having lost my own father very suddenly, from another country, I recognize the range of feelings from panic and disbelief to helplessness presented here and I feel deeply for the author and agree that she should be proud of her creative process, and hope that it's helped her find peace.

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m still not sure exactly what this book is meant to be. Autofiction? Biography? Memoir? And yet it won the Governor General’s Literary Award for French-Language Fiction in Canada. So is it in fact fiction? Confusing. Read as non-fiction it’s an exploration of and meditation and reflection on a father’s life and sudden death. It’s a fragmented narrative and the story is told through conversations, interviews, questionnaires, photographs and dreams. Gradually a portrait of this father is built up, but the conflicting stories and different points of view don’t come together to make a satisfying whole, and he never fully came to life for me. The writing seems heartfelt but at the same time the tone is flat and unemotional, so that I failed to engage either with the dead man, his family or the author’s evident grief. There’s a lot of repetition, too, as many of the interviewees tell the same tale and this becomes tedious. The father remains a shadowy and distant figure and thus the book just didn’t work for me.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

'In the beginning, grieving physically hurts. For weeks after I get back to montreal, I struggle against a pain so immense and engulfs the space around me.'
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'Family albums are maybe less a story of happy times and more about how we self-sabotage, how the horizon narrows and choices become scarce until it feels like there aren't any left at all.'
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Remnants by Céline Huyghbaert, gorgeously translated by Aleshia Jensen is an compelling portrait of grief, and exploration of memory and complex and strained relationships as a daughter attempts to get to know her dead father better.

Remnants is auto fiction, which I'm really loving! I wrote down so many meaningful quotes. It's unconventional and Huyghebaert constantly surprised me while reading this book. A facinating journey on grieving and forgiveness. Many thanks to @bookhug and @zgstories for the gifted copy opinions are my own.

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[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel/memoir/autofiction shows a daughter trying to understand and to get to know her dead father. But despite talking to their relatives, his friends and acquaintances and finding photos, the man remains elusive - she can’t pin down who he was, from all these conflicting stories. These pieces of her father, these remnants, don’t make a whole person, rendering him unknowable as she tries to deal with her grief.
It’s beautifully written - it really portrays those limbo days after the death of someone you love: the utter despair as you tackle this new way of being and living with the memory of a man of contradictions.
A sad collection of thoughts on the nature of family ties; a thought-provoking read.
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. All views are my own.

[Kelsey Weekman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was an absolutely gorgeous idea for a book — pieces of memories of a father, adding up to make a man, or at least the *remnants* of a man, perceived from multiple different perspectives. I liked that this was sewn together like a project — often contradicting, often repetitive. It shows the nuances of how we perceive people and the limits of memory and how perspectives come together to make us who we truly are. It was emotional and lovely. I can't help but think that a true five-star book would have been more cohesive and acknowledged the brokenness of this father's final memory. But it was a lovely read and stuck with me.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very sad and thought provoking book on loss and grief. It reminded me of the death of my grandfather and I related to the regret, sadness and despair that the author felt as she finds out about his death. This book points out some of the difficult truth about how we remember and how we deal with loss and death.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the structure of the novel was very interesting, but I can't decide whether I liked it or not. At times it took me out of the story, but I still found it to be a creative way to understand the author and her motives better. I loved how realistic and human the characters were. Glad I read this one.

[Brooklyn Flick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of loved how intentionally unreliable the narrator was. The reader really had to try and piece together the life of the deceased as best they could- similarly to the author who was struggling to admit the faults of someone whom she loved despite everyone around her doing so. Really impactful to see how her grief redirected the narrative she was producing.

Got much better in the second half.

[Tuesday · Rating 1 out of 5]

A DAUGHTER HONOURS HER LATE FATHER

Translated by Aleshia Jensen, "Remnants," by Celine Huyghebaert, is a tender literary tribute to her father, a post-mortem performed in conjunction with the voices of those who knew him, and, as the prologue makes clear, chose to speak to the author.

This a book about the living writing about contending with the dead, proving that past is not past just yet. It is steeped in references ranging from the painter Magritte, the writer Marguerite Duras, the film "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," and the work of Sophie Calle.

The book is a collage of different modes of writing, but the one that repeats and takes up the most space are the recorded conversations, which were frankly tedious. I kept wishing that the order of the work was re-arranged so that we had more information about her father from the outset, so we cared about him more when other people talked about him.

It is so touching how he haunted her long after his death: he appeared in her dreams!

At the beginning, there is the narrator's relationship with Martin that has no bearing on the other sections. What was the purpose of those initial, actually captivating musings? I liked *that* voice.

In Annie Ernaux's "A Man's Place," or Chantal Akerman's "Ma Mere Rit," Nathalie Leger's "Exposition," Peter Handke's "A Sorrow Beyond Dreams," and Roland Barthes' "Mourning Diary," there is a sort of serious focus of vision, there is a unity even with disparate elements.

The flat, neutral tone was almost too familiar for any emotion to come through, which may have to do with the translation. Rather than a screenplay, it should've adopted a journalistic feel to keep the reader interested in her pursuit, which bogged it down with dumps of information never given the space to come to fruition. It is an assemblage of texts that never meaningfully assembles.

The book did not need to be as long as it was and I can see how the photos were a vital part of the text for the author. There are a bevy of quotes, several lists, and one of the most interesting things to see was how the author succeeded in investing the work with a cinematic feel.

Like the blurry photo of her father on page 163 (which would've been a great cover image) I, too, felt like it was "impossible to bring this man fully into focus," but, in the end, through the remnants she presents us, I had an soft impression of who this ordinary yet extraordinary man was.

It was nice to read it the one time: a document of a life, an aggregation of various forms. It would be helpful to think of it as a personal essay collection melded with dispatches of auto-fiction, more in the vein of Kate Zambreno's "Book of Mutter" and Brian Dillion's "In the Dark Room." than anything Maggie Nelson.

*Thank you NetGalley and Book*hug for making this e-ARC available to me.

[Sam - Spines in a Line · Rating 4 out of 5]

When they say hybrid forms, they really mean it. The author makes use of transcribed interviews, questionnaires, family photographs, and even a handwriting analysis.

This is a very interesting book as it’s Huyghebaert exploring her grief, and all the feelings that come with that, over the loss of her father. It’s a very personal and specific story and I wasn’t sure initially how I would feel about that, how I would connect with her personal experience of losing her father and all of her attempts to piece together who her father was.

But the author does this brilliantly and I quickly became invested in her attempts and the story of this man I only know through her presentation. The chapter that offers a first person perspective from her father, as imagined by Huyghebaert, was particularly moving and devastating. Aleshia Jensen also does a terrific job with the translation here, it felt effortless.

Thanks to ZG Stories for a copy to review!