The Awful Possibilities

but i’m gonna be up in you tomorrow night, along with dorothea lasky, sasha fletcher, kseniya melnik, and amy kandathil. it’s a reading, in brooklyn, in a series called earshot at a venue called rose live music, and you can get the other details here.

denver was bananas. i’m still recovering. we sold out of the book quickfast so all i had to do was the reading (which turned out to be more of a singing, in a kind of blue-eyed soul mode) (which is nothing compared to the show the other f’proof kids put on at the afterparty — it included banjo, short-shorts (the apparel, not the literary kind), singing, and two jugs of milk).

i also got to spend a bunch of time with old friends, some of whom i haven’t seen in years (one i hadn’t seen since high school, and i didn’t even know he’d become a writer), and make some new ones.

i bought a shitload of books, some of which i hope to write about here later.

probably my favorite part was seeing adam novy read from his forthcoming novel the avian gospels. that book is gonna be fire. keep an eye out for it, for your own good.

i stopped in at the barnes and noble at penn on my lunch break monday and saw the awful possibilities on the display table. i was psyched and took a picture with my phone, but i don’t know how to get the picture from my phone to the internet. anyway, that’s the picture for this entry. it’s on the corner of the table, a stack about 4 or 5 thick, right next to a jasper fforde book. the ooze on the cover is dripping onto the table and making it sizzle and smoke a little. the other books are cowering in fear. i should go back soon and see if the store is still standing.

next weekend is chicago.

let's do this, denver.

i’m doing it again, leaving philadelphia to preach the good news. this time to denver. the wild west.

i don’t know what it will be like to drink shots while reading stories at that altitude, but ok i’ll try it this once.

if you’re reading this and you’re going to awp, we should get down, whether you can make the reading or not.

also, it looks like the awful possibilities is now really really out. i was at the office today and jason got it delivered to his desk by amazon. why can’t you be more like jason.

yesterday i got a starred review in publishers weekly, and a lot of wonderful people wrote to congratulate me, and i appreciated that. it’s nice when folks say nice things about my stuff.

but only kathryn knew to congratulate me on this:

i'll take it.

the top paragraph says:

Reviewed this week, new fiction from Stieg Larsson, Bret Easton Ellis, Robert B. Parker, Brunonia Barry, Tom Knox, and Nikki Turner. Plus, Ayelet Waldman tracks the fallout of an unlikely and very short-lived marriage, John Harvey delivers a solid sequel to Gone to Ground, Christian TeBordo’s fiction doesn’t get any less weird, and more.

does this mean i have a reputation?

in other news, the philadelphia readings were awesome. i think toiling in obscurity proved that jaime and jeremy have really got something going for fiction writers in town, and they also kicked ass with their own work. then me, molly gaudry, and jason napoli brooks — three fiction writers — went to chapterhouse (and on to a certain dive bar that i may be spending too much time at) and it was awesome to be able to throw down with some people (you know, the poets) responsible for getting philadelphia back on the literary map these days.

next is denver:

speaks for itself.

well, just look at it. it’s gonna be bonkers. and i think i have to wear shorts? tell your friends.

as ever, i’m happy to come read for you, as long as there’s booze. or a podium (i fidget) (it’s part of the fun for me). preferably booze and a podium. go ahead and tell me: christian dot tebordo at gmail dot com.

that’s why i’m doing a reading tour of the whole damn city this weekend.

to kick it off –

friday night it’s at the dive with fiction by me, jaime fountaine, jeremy eric tenenbaum, blaise fountaine, and becca trabin; poetry by justin audia; and songs by emily and micah mcgraw.

and then, one night later and several blocks away –

saturday night will be chapter house with me, molly gaudry, and jason napoli brooks.

you should probably come to both and see some different sides of me. details on the lecture page.

so let’s get together and celebrate.

the awful possibilities is my best book. it was my best book when i submitted it to jonathan and zach at featherproof, and then jonathan helped me clean it up and rearrange it, and zach filled it with creepy postcards and crammed my handwriting in there and slathered the whole thing in black goo, and now it is really my best book. i think it’s exactly like being inside my mind. thank you, jonathan and zach.

so first of all, go here to read excerpts (including a downloadable version of the first story, “ss attacks!”) and order the damn thing. don’t you want to be in my mind?

then realize that i’m about to start doing a bunch of readings. i’ve updated the lecture page, and i expect to see you at them if you live within flying distance. if you’d rather just schedule a reading within walking or driving distance, email me at christian dot tebordo at gmail dot com.

this is all by way of saying that things will be pretty quiet around here for a minute, but i will update when i can, and you should check back to see what readings i add, because there will be more to come.

finally, i feel bad, because i’ve been reading a lot lately, but given all of the above, and the fact that i’m buying a house (did i mention i’m buying a house?) and also working a full time job, means i don’t have a ton of time to post stuff just now. but here is a list of stuff, some of which i may come back to later, that i’ve read recently, that i think is really good and worth your time:

• the ask, by sam lipsyte. not as straight up funny as home land, but as consistently well-written, and with more effort (and a good deal of success) toward depth. really dark. in some cases possibly wallowing in it, which is the only complaint i can come up with against lipsyte. i don’t expect to see many better books than this this year.
• the taste of penny, by jeff parker. i wrote a thing here about parker’s ovenman, which i loved. i’ve since met him (beers and pizza) and gotten a blurb from him and will be reading with him this spring. this new collection is awesome. it has all of the strengths — taut prose, great humor, utterly convincing characters — that the novel did, but it also shows a range (of voice, subject matter, hell, even ambition) that i wouldn’t have expected based strictly on ovenman. i hope to write more thoroughly about this and the ask together, because they complement each other in many ways.
• we take me apart, by molly gaudry. i read this in manuscript form a while back, so it took me a minute to get to my bound volume. the book itself is beautiful, as is gaudry’s text. if i were writing a blurb it would say something about a cross between gertrude stein (style) and jeanette winterson (content). except maybe the style is more similar to carole maso and the content to kate bernheimer. does it matter? i thought of all of those writers, and they’re all good. good reasons to check the book out.
• inconceivable wilson, by j a tyler. possibly the best book title of the year? tyler published gaudry’s book through mud luscious press. oh, what a tangled web. anyway, to continue with the blurbesque conceit, inconceivable wilson seems like what would happen if (second trilogy era) beckett rewrote heart of darkness. tyler’s got the linguistic chops to merit that comparison. i have to admit, i frequently asked myself about the political ramifications of such a rewrite (conrad contextualized himself so well, whereas beckett’s context seems to come from avoiding context). but whether you accept his program or not, you have to admit that tyler’s got skills.