SOME THINGS WRONG
Thomas Pors Koed

“Presence on the road. Call it a road. Somewhere with the expectations of a road. The expectation to go on. For example. The expectation to overcome the impediments to going on. The expectation that going on is possible. The expectation that going on is even to be considered. Too late. Something near necessity bound to something near impossibility. Near enough in either case. Resembling both. But contending in their imperfections. Imperfect necessity. Imperfect impossibility. No more likely candidates for hope.”

Composed entirely of details that would have been better left out, Some Things Wrong is an unsparing yet strangely cheerful exploration of failure, error and incapacity. Our memories, identities, concepts and intentions are entirely dependent on the errors on which they are founded. By exhausting these errors and by calling its own content constantly into question, this book asks what it is, at base, that enables or causes us to continue. 

Thomas Pors Koed writes unpopular fiction. 
Some Things Wrong is his first book since No Relation (Titus Books, 2015).

Reviews

“There aren’t enough experimental Édouard Levé-esque books published in Aotearoa. Koed creates a claustrophobic narrative with a rhythm built on staccato sentences, guilt, and repetition. Similar to that other brilliant novel from 2023, Pip Adam’s Audition, there’s a crushing sense of interiority. The focus however abruptly shifts from subject to object, recasting what we’d read beforehand. Koed describes himself as writing ‘unpopular fiction’ but all I say is: More please!” —Brannavan Gnanalingam (The Spinoff, ‘The Aotearoa books of the year for 2023’)

Of No Relation:
"The ambiguities and the wilful shattering of fiction’s comfortable illusions force the reader to become as much a producer of these texts as s/he is their consumer. Not that reading them is remotely like a chore, for these are some of the most ingenious and strikingly original short stories I have read in the last 10 years." —Ted Jenner, Landfall (Read the full review here)

Of No Relation:
"The stories are unlike anything published in English lately, unless as translations. ... The book will take you into realms of fictive suggestiveness ... and into psychological spaces you may have once discovered, but if you did, you survived because you backed out before your sanity was compromised. Now you may re-enter with Koed as your guide. ...  This book should be in everyone's bookcase. It is a sensitive work by, and portrayal of, the seeking mind." —Bill Direen, Percutio (Read the full review here)

Thomas Pors Koed reads from Some Things Wrong.

• Read INCOMPLETELY UNWRITTEN: an interview with Thomas Pors Koed (Ellipsis, April 2024)

Also by Thomas Pors Koed: No Relation