In this week’s Illustrated PEN, Guest Editor Whit Taylor presents an excerpt from cartoonist and painter Kurt Ankeny’s graphic novel, In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home, about his life and family in a small New England town.

Taylor writes: Kurt Ankeny’s In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home (Two Hundred Zoo Press) is a poetic and thoughtfully crafted graphic novel that is centered around the notion of place. Through a series of beautifully drawn interactions, observations, and reflections, Ankeny brings the small Massachusetts town of Ipswich to life. His portrayal of the town’s quirky history, architecture, natural landscape, and people prove that reflecting on one’s home is both achievable and elusive. As a non-native to the area and someone who is part of a multiracial family, Ankeny is keenly aware of what it means to be an outsider. His observational skills are like that of an ethnographer in the sense that he is both detached from his environment and dependent on it. What results is a purposely fragmented tale that highlights the ineffable quality of what makes a place a home.

Kurt Ankeny is a cartoonist and painter whose work has appeared at the Society of Illustrators, at the Cape Ann Museum, in Comics Workbook, and in Best American Comics 2017. He lives with his wife and son in Salem, Massachusetts.