Is a ghost engine alive? Is it relatable? Purposeful?
Christian TeBordo weaves between narratives in search of the answer in his latest collection of stories, Ghost Engine, a Bridge Eight Press Fiction Prize Winner. You’ll learn from a convicted murderer why the rainbow is the most insidious of all metals. Fashion designer Gordon Gartrelle adapts to his identity as fashion designer Gordon Gartrelle. Frag and Watt take turns with a wrench, hoping to assemble something that just might work, if only for a moment. From scenes of chilling hilarity to an underlying absurdity, Ghost Engine finds a way to keep the haunt alive long after you’ve finished reading.
Trade Paperback // 200 Pages // $16.95
Bridge Eight Fiction Prize Winner
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Reviews & Interviews
“While TeBordo’s stories range from realism to abstraction, they share similar themes of lost faith: in God, in humankind, in one’s self. There’s a sense of the insignificance of humans, of a lack of control in a world of harsh realities, and of an endless search to connect to anything or anyone. This serrated collection excels at knocking readers off-balance.”
“In fact, in lieu of chapters, the new collection’s table of contents lists organs. The titular ghost engine remains a mystery that TeBordo prefers the reader to define for themselves. This strange machine is referred to in several connected stories featuring Frag and Watt, two bickering creatures who are obsessed with trying to make the thing run properly, when not tormenting one another.”
“These pieces are darkly humorous, formally inventive, oddly angled, and full of hard, electric prose. It deservedly won the inaugural Bridge Eight Press Prize, and it probably deserved to win a few other prizes too. It is one of the best collections published in the last year.”
“The senselessness instead becomes a spectacle. The ghost engine is the flash in the pan, the thing we talk about around the water cooler and the hope and the terror that makes each day something worth living.”
Discussing David Foster Wallace with Christian TeBordo, author of Ghost Engine and Toughlahoma.
About the Author
Advance Praise for Ghost Engine
“Christian TeBordo writes so inventively and forcefully and with such great humor and heart, I’d read his grocery lists. Even better, his fifth book, Ghost Engine, is as relentless a collection of fiction I’ve encountered in years. Influences of Beckett and Barthelme lurk in the shadows, some Ballard and Borges, too. But make no mistake: Ghost Engine is original to its bones. TeBordo’s prose hits as hard as a hammer, his characters haunt your dreams. The satire never tires and somehow you wind up laughing and loving every page you turn. So what are you waiting for?”
– Tom Williams, author of Among the Wild Mulattos
***
“Steeped though it may be in the grand tradition of Didion’s Airships, Bolaño’s Girl with Curious Hair, and Bernhard’s Collected Short Stories of Lydia Davis, Christian TeBordo’s Ghost Engine nonetheless defies comparison. Given that we live in so bizarre a multiverse, these brilliant, irreverent, ingenious stories may seem impolite at times. Vicious. Disturbing. The book may cause you to laugh out loud at something you’d rather not admit you find funny, or bring tears to your eyes on behalf of a character you’d rather not admit you find human—it might hurt your feelings—but Ghost Engine loves you. Ghost Engine only hopes for the best for you. All that Ghost Engine really wants, in the end, is to see you smile that pretty smile of yours while it sets your house on fire.”
– Camille Bordas, author of How to Behave in a Crowd
***
TeBordo speaks to the troubling light and the comforting darkness of our present situation. These are vibrant, extraordinary stories built out of the fever dream of the recent American past (80s sitcoms, 90s cable news, death metal, professional wrestling, Law and Order, Madonna, Lady Gaga). He writes from the core of our shared junkheap and excavates beauty, buries it again, breaks it out anew. I was surprised by how unexpected and inventive these recursions become, how they trigger recognition, surprise, delight. You’ll find Albert Camus hiding in the heap, but also E.M. Forster, unlikely spirits enlisted in the service of TeBordo’s remarkable vision. Others too. The ghosts are all present and the engine’s humming.
– Juan Martinez, author of Best Worst American
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