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REVIEW: The Apology by Christian TeBordo

Fiction. 178 pages. Astrophil Press. Nov 2021. Buy it here.

There’s something punk rock about TeBordo’s writing. Suburban, but punk rock. Or, at least my understanding of punk rock. I was born in 1990. I grew up listening to Prince and Mariah Carey. Maybe I’m starting all of this wrong.

The Apology is an episode of The Office turned into an episode of Fargo turned into a thought exercise written by Albert Camus. Our narrator is a man with a new identity, who is either the butt of an elaborate prank or his own worst enemy or simply the unlucky recipient of life’s mundane chaos. Either way, he’s a rebel in a tie and reluctantly charming. I actually don’t know if he wears a tie. But I like Mike Long. I’d like to have a beer with him (I know, I’m sorry).

I’m usually not a fan of the postmodernist’s need to remind me that the text is a text, but in the case of The Apology, the meta-asides felt conversational and attune with the nature of an “apology,” both in the philosophical and non-philosophical sense.

I know The Apology is good because not only did it leave me in the forgiving spirit, but I found myself continuing to turn the page even as my three-week-old daughter slept in the crook of my other arm. I’m exhausted, but I wanted to read this book more than I wanted to make myself breakfast.

TeBordo has a way of addressing our existential dread without getting all soapy about it. Yes, the world doesn’t exist, except sometimes or most of the times it does, and it doesn’t really matter, but that doesn’t mean actions don’t have consequences.

What’s remarkable about The Apology is how beautifully unapologetic it all feels. Mike Long is wildly imperfect, and that’s okay—except it isn’t. Not to the coworkers who inhabit his office.

Maybe my exhaustion is what made The Apology so appealing. A large part of me doesn’t give a fuck about much these days. I’m tired of everything. Of the charades and the parades. But I do love books, and this seemed to fall right in the gooey center in which I’m still vulnerable to caring about something. The world may be exhausting, but Christian TeBordo certainly is not.

#FreeKnightRider

Unhatched

Creating a Functional Interest (Part 7) by Caleb Michael Sarvis

My name is Caleb Michael Sarvis. I’m a writer, a thinker, and currently a self-reflective incubator. Welcome to a blog series in which I’ll be analyzing both the practical and interesting ways imaginary characters can play in fiction, including The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien, 2014’s Best Picture Winner Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), and other short fiction.

Reason, Dreams, and Conclusion

Hemingway, Carver, and other post-Enlightenment authors championed realism in its most literal sense. If art is the representation of real-life then art must be as close to real-life as possible. Angels don’t exist in real life. Tigers don’t associate with six-year old boys. A deer carcass doesn’t orchestrate an existential crisis. These claims are fallacies. If not for imagination, then we’d have no fictions. In his “First Manifesto on Surrealism,” Andre Breton argues that we mistakenly dismiss the significance of dreams. Like the imaginary character, Breton believes dreams are a clearer representation of what we desire, and as a result, the dreamer is a more content man, Continue reading “Creating a Functional Interest (Part 7) by Caleb Michael Sarvis” →

Unhatched

Creating a Functional Interest (Part 6) by Caleb Michael Sarvis

Stories by Chris Adrian

In his story “A Better Angel,” Chris Adrian creates a world in which a guardian angel is something more of a self-righteous partner. The narrator, Carl, is an impaired (as in swiping morphine, Percocet and Ativan when he can) pediatrician that’s left to deal with his dying father because his three older sisters are pregnant at the same time and aren’t doctors like him. Nor do they have guardian angels like Carl. He’s had his since he was six, and now that he has to face and care for his dying father, someone he has little to no relationship with, his angel is pushing him towards resolution. When Carl resists going to see his father, the angel is quick to judge, Continue reading “Creating a Functional Interest (Part 6) by Caleb Michael Sarvis” →

Unhatched

Creating a Functional Interest (Part 3) by Caleb Michael Sarvis

The Third Policeman

In Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, an unnamed narrator obsessed with the teachings of a fictional scholar named de Selby experiences the imaginary character in multiple forms. The most obvious and apparent would be Joe, the vocal representation of his soul. Joe is a voice that lacks confusion and the need of self-assurance. In the novel, the narrator participates in a series of both events and conversations that appear to be complete nonsense, and Joe is always there to be the voice of what appears to be reason. While he doesn’t directly oppose the narrator (the two policemen act as a natural antagonist), he does appear at interesting (and sometimes inconvenient) moments. Joe first appears as the narrator is about to steal from Mathers, a man he killed with his friend Divney, Continue reading “Creating a Functional Interest (Part 3) by Caleb Michael Sarvis” →