«Intenté ser una persona honrada. Lo intenté durante mucho tiempo..., pero no funcionó», asegura Tyndale Corbett, un agente comercial en paro, cuarentón divorciado y sin dinero que suplanta por unos días a un amigo en una convención de agentes comerciales en Miami. Tras viajar a esta ciudad y salir airoso del encuentro, Tyndale, deslumbrado por los hoteles de lujo, la diversión fácil y unas vagas intuiciones de enriquecimiento rápido, decide acabar con su cochambrosa mediocridad y aspirar alto, muy alto: de hecho, decide ser Dios... o, al menos, tratar de convencer a la ciudad de que lo es. Para ello necesita una parroquia y la encuentra en la Iglesia del Cristo Fuertemente Armado. Pero su apostolado no acaba de cuajar y Tyndale se jugará el todo por el todo con un milagro pasmoso: morirá y resucitará a las pocas horas. Para ello, urde un plan infalible con el empleado de una funeraria; pero ¿acaso existen los planes infalibles?

Midlife crisis? Gatwicklungsroman? Picaresque?

Not really sure how to classify this one. There's no real character-development, though there is nostalgia and some peripheral soul-searching. Many things happen, but there is no plot to speak of.

As always, Tibor Fischer's writing is entertaining and engaging, a healthy bit of British wordplay garnishing every page.

The fish-out-of-water story about a Londoner transplanted to Miami quickly settles into an episodic narrative of a guy who has turned out to be surprisingly good at not really doing anything. There's an attempt to create a philosophy out of this: the guy fails when he tries, but succeeds when he doesn't try, and his religious message to the masses is "don't expect a reward".

I feel that more could have done with this, both from a narrative standpoint and from a "what the hell, let's make an anti-Dianetics and see if anyone bites" standpoint. That would have made for a novel easier to recommend, but probably less enjoyable -- and certainly suffering from the hypocrisy that proselytizing the First Church of Slackerdom would entail. A truly do-nothing, expect-nothing ethos could only result in the novel we are given.

So why not? Three stars, then. ( )

Fischer is at it again, with a protagonist who is at the same time very normal (he is a 40-something guy who lost his job and has seen his life peter out to failure) and hilariously non-normal. As non normal as only Fischer can make him (his solution to his problems? Flee to America and become God).

It's difficult to judge Fischer's books and build a "scale". Is this better than "The Thought Gang"? Or is it more or less the same except that you can't outdo yourself every time, so your first books are always "better" because they weren't already part of a series?

Anyway, pretty funny, as usual, and at the same time tragic and wise. I really love this author even if every time I put down one of his books, I long for "Under The Frog", which was slightly less incredible, and therefore a bit more... human? ( )

I usually love tibor's books. This one, not so much. Started out promising, and in usual tibor way - odd. But then sort of fell into a dud. ( )