The Awful Possibilities

by Christian TeBordo

After three novels, dynamic and masterful young writer Christian TeBordo, has finally collected his best short stories in The Awful Possibilities. A girl among kidney thieves masters the art of forgetting. A motivational speaker skins his best friend to impress his wife. A man outlines the rules and regulations for sadistic child-rearing. A teen in Brooklyn, Iowa, deals with the fallout of his brother's rise to hip hop fame. Populated with the people we've all heard whispering in hallways, mumbling in diners, shouting in the apartment next door, these brilliantly strange set pieces that explode the boundaries of short fiction and locate the awe in the awful possibilities we could never have imagined.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

169 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2010

About the author

Christian TeBordo was born in Albany, New York. His first collection of short stories The Awful Possibilities, is forthcoming from featherproof books in April 2010. He has published three novels, most recently We Go Liquid, and his work has been published in 3rd Bed, Ninth Letter, Torpedo, and Sleeping Fish, among others. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, the choreographer Kathryn TeBordo, who plays and sings in the indie rock bands The Failed Alliance and Tinmouth.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an interesting mix of reflective insight about the human condition and refreshingly imaginative total bizarreness. Though it can get a tad confusing at times, the writing is nicely free and fluid. I especially like the odd little postcards that separate and bookend the stories, completely strange little notes from a man on vacation to his wife who is on vacation with him and will receive the postcards upon their return home.

[featherproof · Rating 5 out of 5]

In brilliantly strange stories that explode the boundaries of short fiction, Christian TeBordo locates the awe in the awful possibilities we could have never imagined.

Coming April 2010! A girl masters the art of forgetting among kidney thieves. A motivational speaker skins his best friend to impress his wife. A man outlines the rules and regulations for sadistic childrearing. You’ve heard these people whispering in hallways, mumbling in diners, shouting in the apartment next door. In nine brilliantly strange set pieces that explode the boundaries of short fiction, The Awful Possibilities will twist you in nine awe-inspiring directions.

Christian TeBordo has published three novels. This is his first collection of short fiction. He lives in Philadelphia. Read his blog at awfulpossibilities.com

[Regan]

Once I lived next door to a woman I named The Repeater. The Repeater did what you would expect, i.e. she repeated the same sentence again and again to the unlistening ears of her cohabitants. Usually the things she repeated were banal, i.e. not worth repeating. Occasionally, however, the repetition transformed the banal into the profound, demonstrating that one can draw extraordinary blood from an ordinary stone. In these short stories TeBordo is also fond of repeating himself, but his repetitions never transcend themselves to become something new and immanently interesting.

The Awful Possibilities is the first I've read of TeBordo. Perhaps his novels are more well-crafted, but this collection reads like undisciplined idea tinkering, not ground-breaking experimental fiction. To quote TeBordo against himself: "Really he's just another cog, a whiny little cipher who manufactures impotent little apocalypses every single evening."

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good writing mitigated by a preoccupation with edginess & quirkiness. But “Rules and Regulations,” the final story, is a banger.

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Righteous author dude is one of the few writers I've become friendly with in Philly. Two things I know about him informed my reading of his first collection of stories: He drinks faster than I do and he smokes before he swims. He also taught me a new word in the first story: "tupacalypse." The inclusion of tender postcards sent to his wife nicely complicates the rougher gist of the stories, which often seemed sort of language-y to me (I mean: I was aware of the author's attention to the language), but thankfully without look-at-me-mah! skewing of vocab or syntax. The postcards also added a necessary dimension for me, making the author appear as a character throughout or sort of hovering over things. Story shapes reminded me of the cigs often smoked in the stories: an opening spark followed by straight shots propelled to the butt with controlled/intelligent embers -- good for you when stressed or drinking but maybe not intended for nourishment? Seemed sort of intentionally anti-polychromatic (see the book's oil-slicked cover and postcards), maybe to serve as "A reminder to be vigilant against molding the new . . ." Or: "it's so like you to ask so little of me that it shames me when I fall short." I'd say no reason to feel ashamed! An accessible and idiosyncratically even collection of tender tupacalyptical stories . . . Fans of Stanley Crawford's Some Instructions might wanna check out the last story, which seemed to me like a perverted homage.

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dude, this shit is weak. Like you're still mentioning MySpace when you're published in 2010. And it's good your publisher told us the macabre twists already cos the stories are way too boring to actually read to the end of. Guess this must be how I got a cheap copy off Amazon that was previously owned by Virginia Beach Public Library but is already stamped DISCARD.

[Oriana]

I am getting concerned about the increasing weirdness of Adam Levin–recommended books...

[Alexandra Nord · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories are hit or miss, but dang do I love his writing style

[mads · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up ! a fun collection, quite liked the writing style !!

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a writer, I'm interested in experimentation and forging new ideas in literature. There are a few things I like to do in my stories specifically to deal with current trends or problems. TeBordo has already done them for me and better.

1. Imprecision of language
Language seems to be saturated with a more and more imprecise lexicon, a sort of dumbing down where words become devalued and meaningless. But it is possible through word choice and context to actually use imprecision as a means of expansion. So that a word that once meant little or nothing can mean anything.
"It was a passive loss, as opposed to an active one. He didn't drop something on the ground or leave it beneath a discarded newspaper in a restaurant or even never have something at all. Someone had taken something of his against his will. The man who was walking away." ("Took and Lost")
I like to use pronouns in preference to names because "he" or "she" could be anyone, could be you. And TeBordo goes even further, sometimes referring to a person as "it."
2. Fragmentation
I don't know TeBordo's motives, but I have been interested in using fragments and improper grammar for a couple of reasons.
a. With the prevalence of such tools as spell check and grammar check, using fragments can indicate intention. By creating new sentences, the writer refuses to lean on such props.
b. Another reason is the intentional breaking of a rule. Who says every sentence needs to sound exactly the same? Why should we obey Microsoft's conceptions of proper grammar? You know what? Screw Microsoft and MLA and rules.
c. "Correct English is not usually the strongest kind of English." -The Instructions
"I asked him if he was behind the curtain. I asked him if he was decent. He didn't answer so I pulled the curtain open with my free hand and looked in. To check on the ice. And the boy because I was the leader of me and him." (The Champion of Forgetting")
3. Non Sequitur
There is only one reason to use a non sequitur: to introduce disorder and upset a reader's expectations. And to be funny.
"'I should be finding my way back to my apartment where my wife is awaiting me being patient,' I say. 'Besides, there's a doormat on the first floor embroidered with dolphins frolicking in a moonlit sea.'" ("Three Denials")

These are just some of the reasons Christian Tebordo is the author I will never be but aspire to become.

[Brandon Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book to just give yourself over to. It has it's own rules and views, so no use trying to meet it halfway, you just need to follow along. Truly dark horrifying and unsettling ("The Champion of Forgetting" -- a delusional first person account of a young girl's abduction and induction into the world of kidney thieves), other times it's darkly absurd, in the vein of Ionesco or Beckett (Took and Lost, Oh, Little So-and-So -- a man gives a hitchhiking little girl a ride to a cemetery at her request to get to a funeral, well, that is what he can make sense of the little she says).

My favorite line:
"Woman," I said, "my passion for you knows no midnight, and besides, the tanner was a friend of my youth."

If you'd like to understand the context of that, and I recommend you do, pick up this book.

[Marty · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have one word for this collection of short stories - incomprehensible. There are several other words I could have chosen but this seems to encapsulate them all. I don't dislike a lot of books I read, and the Library Journal review really made it sound intriguing. Instead the stories are so impressionistic, you're not sure what is going on. You're not sure if you're reading sci-fi/fantasy or realism. And you end up really not caring - you just want it to be over.

Thankfully, it was a short book and I can mark it off of my TBR shelf. That's about all the good that came from reading it.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd say 6 of the 9 stories were really pretty awesome. The other 3 weren't bad by any means, but weren't necessarily for me, which is to say my aesthetic is clearly different from Christian's at times, but the language and the inventiveness and the kind of manic energy that permeates this whole collection made it a joy to roll through in just a few hours, and in some ways it stands as a testament to the continuing relevance of short stories.

[Luis Correa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things that are cool: the first and last story, both of which use second person to staggering results; the innovative storytelling; the ferocious energy of the stories--you can feel it. Things that are butt:often I got less from the actual story/character part of the story than the framework/language.

[Charles Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly awful possibilities, these are. Every one of these stories is a challenging read, if only because people act and are acted upon awfully. It was hard to find the deeper message, though - even though I read this because of the George Saunders blurb, it had none of his biting satire, just his misery. I liked the book a lot, it just made me feel icky and sent me to look for a hug.

[Nora · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading a lot of short story collections lately -- generally of the unsettling variety, to say the least -- and I don't feel like this one keeps pace. It pushes boundaries, to be sure. The prose is riveting. But in a big-picture sense, I'm not sure I was left with much in the end. The postcard interludes may have been my favorite part.

[Grainne Rhuad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really this book was just okay. A loosly tied series of shorts torn from the headlines so to speak. In actuallity, it was torn from the buried pages of the news, but news still the same. Fiction written about the possibly why's or what were they thinkings. Mildly entertaining.

[Jaclyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Adam Levin. I HATE this book. I feel betrayed that such a brilliant author would recommend a pointless mess like this. There is no meaning or feeling in it (except for some generalized alienation). Do not trust the good reviews on here, clearly they're by friends of the author.

[Sara Gerot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that these stories were all pretty good but some of them were too cerebral for me. Too performative. I enjoyed the graphic sickness of them though. I prefer the parts grounded in muck and violence. The opening story mentions Brooklyn, Iowa. This sold me from the get.

[Kelsey Edwards · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the writing style. Especially when he used the second person and when he had full paragraphs of "what if" questions. However I couldn't understand most of the stories and would get confused/bored halfway through each one. It started off strong but I was ultimately left unsatisfied.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories in this collection that I enjoyed, I enjoyed very much. It might not be for everyone but it's a weird jaunt through lunacy and I feel like there are plenty of people who can get behind that, so read it if you feel you might be one of them. Chances are you are.

[Zachary · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no possibility that you will think this book is awful.

[Mark Cugini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christian TeBordo uses word repetition and a layered sentence structure brilliantly in The Awful Possibilities. Never do you feel grounded in place or character, yet never do you complain.

[Patrick Wensink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tight tales of high weirdness. I liked these better than his last novel, We Go Liquid.

[J. Bradley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish it. Don't want to return to it.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christian is my buddy from Philadelphia, so I have an obvious bias, but I really think the short story medium is working for him! Like Gertrude Stein and Don DeLillo had a perverse lovechild.

[Sycobabel · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's cleverness wore on me, but there are some gems.

[Maureen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lackadaisical, sprawling writing that can't decide what it wants to say, too many typos, smarmy wordplay, and an unappealing flow made this book really, really disappointing.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosh I really loved this book.