Good to Be God [Hardcover]

one of the funniest writers in the business --The Daily Telegraph

This is Fischer at his sharpest - a wildly original feelbad philosophical hayride --The Times

Tibor Fischer's new novel resembles an Evelyn Waugh plot filmed by David Lynch...Fischer's fecund imagination keeps the satire constantly engaging. --The Daily Mail

This is Fischer at his sharpest --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Fischer's fecund imagination keeps the satire constantly engaging --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

A born story teller --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

the best thinking-person's entertainer since Iris Murdoch --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Fischer's writing is as inventive as ever and he also manages to use Tyndale's exploits to explore what it means to live - or try to live - a good life. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

A picaresque romp ensues, set in a vividly evoked Miami, full of oddball characters and witty one-liners. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

I have seen this book being handed round a pub with hearty recommendations, and verdicts such as "a return to form". When was the last time you saw hardened drinkers pass around a novel that asks some big philosophical questions? --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Deciding that identity fraud lacks ambition, Tyndale Corbett attempts to convince the people of Miami that he is God. His inadvertent success has unholy and darkly comic consequences.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Using the credit card and identity of a handcuffs salesman, professional failure Tyndale Corbett arrives in Miami for a law enforcement conference to discover the joys of luxury hotels and above all the delight of being someone else, someone successful. Feeling his previous lack of success might be due to insufficient ambition, Tyndale decides on a new money-making scheme. He will up the ante substantially, exponentially and pretend to be someone really important and successful: God.His mission to convince the citizenry of Miami that he is, despite appearances, the Supreme Being results in him taking over the Church of the Heavily Armed Christ. His duties there involve him in forming a private army, hiring call girls, trafficking coke, issuing death threats, beating off church-jackers and sorting out (as almightily as possible) various problems his parishioners are having with pets. All the while he is working on his grand project, the clincher miracle, dying and coming back to life...

* Different cover

* Limitation page

* Only 200 copies printed --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Tibor Fischer was born in Stockport of Hungarian parents. Brought up in South London, he was educated at Cambridge and worked as a journalist. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his first novel, Under the Frog, which also won a Betty Trask Award, and he was nominated as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. Subsequent works include The Thought Gang, The Collector Collector, Don't Read this Book if You're Stupid and Voyage to the End of the Room.

You know when you're in trouble. You know you're in trouble when you phone and no one phones back. You know you're in trouble when you get back home, the door's been kicked in, the only thing stolen is the lock (it's the only thing worth stealing) and your burglar has left a note urging you to "pull yourself together".
This isn't funny when it happens to you.
I tried to live my life decently. For a long time. I really did, but it didn't work...

"Well," says Nelson. I haven't seen him for a few years. He's waiting for me in the Chinese restaurant, patiently turning over the menu. With your schoolfriends, 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 schoolfriend 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 didn't matter much.

Nelson, Bizzy and I would roll through South London. You'll
never be able to enjoy driving as much as when you're fifteen and in a stolen car. We'd stop off and have an expensive meal (prawn cocktail, steak, black forest gateau) on one of Nelson's 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.