Tibor Fischer - Good to Be God

Praise for Good to Be God

This is Fischer at his sharpest a widely original
feelbad philosophical hayride.

The Times

Brutal, dazzling and clever.

The Independent

Fischer is one of the funniest writers in the business,
and his appealing satirical delivery, along with the wealth
of zealously polished gags studded through the narrative,
ensure a hum of low-level smiling satisfaction throughout.

The Daily Telegraph

Fischers fecund imagination keeps
the satire constantly engaging.

The Daily Mail

The narrative is propelled by the authors
madcap imagination and inventive language.

Times Literary Supplement

A spot-on mixture of shady characters and searing
insight as blackly funny as it is profound.

Maxim

As in all his fiction, Fischer makes comic capital out of
the fretful, trivial, even sordid realities that get
in the way of five-star ideals.

Financial Times

There are a lot of funny lines Good to be God dramatizes
the neuroses of a man mired in middle age who is dismally
disappointed with the way things have panned out.

Sunday Telegraph

A born storyteller.

Sunday Times

The best thinking-persons entertainer since
Iris Murdoch one of his funniest books to date.

Time Out

Good to Be God is funny and true, and (not merely because its
set in Miami) Fischers sunniest novel to date.

Catholic Herald

Tibor Fischers surreal morality tale is bullet-riddled
with wisdom, but freed from worthiness thanks to his
brilliantly dry, warped humour.

The List

For all their surface shine and fantastical scope, Fischers
books are often serious investigations into what
it means to be good.

Metro

Tyndale is as bad at being a religious fraudster as he is at
everything else. But he discovers that in a world of double-crossing,
being a reliable failure can be as useful as being a success.

New Statesman

GOOD TO BE GOD

GOOD TO BE GOD

TIBOR FISCHER

ALMA BOOKS LTD
London House
243253 Lower Mortlake Road
Richmond
Surrey TW9 2LL
United Kingdom
www.almabooks.com

Good to Be God first published by Alma Books Limited in 2008
This paperback edition first published by Alma Books Limited in 2009
Copyright Tibor Fischer, 2008

Tibor Fischer asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are
the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-84688-084-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-84688-105-3

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior
written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out
or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

For Louise

GOOD TO BE GOD

You know when youre in trouble. You know youre in trouble when you phone and no one phones back. You know youre in trouble when you get back home, the doors been kicked in, the only thing stolen is the lock (its the only thing worth stealing) and your burglar has left a note urging you to pull yourself together.

This isnt funny when it happens to you.

I tried to live my life decently. For a long time. I really did, but it didnt work

Well, says Nelson. I havent seen him for a few years. Hes waiting for me in the Chinese restaurant, patiently turning over the menu. With your school friends, you tend to think of them as they were, and it was unnatural to find Nelson there, not just on time, but early.

Nelson was the school friend my parents liked. He mastered manipulation young, and my parents were reassured by the state of the nation when Nelson, his hair immaculately combed, would greet them with excessive courtesy. This opposed to the inevitable grunts of my other associates. My mother was often more pleased to see Nelson than I was.

Only once did my mother have suspicions. One evening, as I walked out to join Nelson in his car, she mused, He does look too young to be driving. That was probably because Nelson was indeed two years too young to have a driving licence, but since the car was stolen that didnt matter much.

Nelson, Bizzy and I would roll through south London. Youll never be able to enjoy driving as much as when youre fifteen and in a stolen car. Wed stop off and have an expensive meal (prawn cocktail, steak, black forest gateau) on one of Nelsons stolen credit cards. We did this quite often, and we only had trouble one night, but not from suspicious waiters or the police. Nelson normally a conscientious driver accidentally cut up a vanload of heavies, twice our age, size and number. We were chased around for an hour, and it was the only time I saw Nelson scared.

How you? asks Nelson. Its a perfectly reasonable, expected question. But its one I wish I wasnt asked these days.

Fine, I say. We both know this isnt true.

Every school has a Nelson: the kid who phones in the bomb threats, who steals teachers bags and exam papers, who goes off on exotic holidays with complete strangers paying for it or foreign governments arranging for his travel back, under that famed practice of deportation. From the age of about twelve to eighteen I dont think Nelson went a day without committing an incarcerable criminal act. Yet he never spent five minutes in a police station in England. It seemed to us that he was destined either for the gallows or stardom in international skulduggery. What happened to Nelson? What happened to Nelson was that life kicked the shit out of him.

Married with two kids, Nelson now works as a rep for a company that manufactures handcuffs. The company does some other things, but its staple is handcuffs. Nelson has some piquant stories about his overseas customers who, for example, ask for their money back when blood jams the cuffs and they cant get them off the bodies.

We share the same birthday and this makes him an outlandish mirror. We reanimate that night we nearly got mashed and other choice japes. To have a really good laugh about them we need each other. Have we seen anyone from the old days? We havent. Not for years. But even if we had, they wouldnt have evented enough to produce a good anecdote. Nothing much happens when youre forty.

Not that I need reminding, but when I look at Nelson I see how punishing this marathon is. Hes not slow or lazy. I havent bought so much as a shirt for myself in four years, he tells me. His daughter wants to be a doctor and he has to save up. We both express horror at the price of everything, especially food. He can barely afford a restrained night-out in a cheap local Chinese restaurant, and I cant afford it at all. Thats middle age for men, less hair and more stinginess.

Why cant they do proper coffee in Chinese restaurants? he reflects as he pokes his liquid with a spoon. You know, my wife does my hair. He makes clipper movements with his hand. Is ageing a reverse process? You get a few moments in your twenties when you wangle some clout, but then it all closes in on you and youre back in a saggy version of childhood where you cant do what you want and someone who doesnt know how to do it is cutting your hair.