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Fine
To hear Paul Reverb tell it, he’s fine.
Sure, he’s been caught in a compromising situation by his window cleaner and failed to prevent daylight robbery, and yes, he no longer tells people he was born the day Sergeant Pepper was released, as, to his horror, people no longer know what a Sergeant Pepper is.
Fine.
But Paul isn’t fine. He hates his job and he’s not fond of his friends. He sits in his dead parents’ flat surrounded by his carefully curated, reassuringly warm vinyl, not writing the novel he’s not been writing for a decade. Paul is lonely to his bones and will likely stay that way until his dead body is found by his cleaner.
Will Paul Reverb ever find happiness? Will he even recognise it if he does? And who cares if a middle-aged man finds happiness anyway?
Fine is coarse. Fine is sad and sweet and crude and beautiful. Fine is scurrilously funny while making your bottom lip tremble. Fine is a rallying cry for growing old riotously, for not going gently and for not judging people by the state of their recycling bins.
Sure, he’s been caught in a compromising situation by his window cleaner and failed to prevent daylight robbery, and yes, he no longer tells people he was born the day Sergeant Pepper was released, as, to his horror, people no longer know what a Sergeant Pepper is.
Fine.
But Paul isn’t fine. He hates his job and he’s not fond of his friends. He sits in his dead parents’ flat surrounded by his carefully curated, reassuringly warm vinyl, not writing the novel he’s not been writing for a decade. Paul is lonely to his bones and will likely stay that way until his dead body is found by his cleaner.
Will Paul Reverb ever find happiness? Will he even recognise it if he does? And who cares if a middle-aged man finds happiness anyway?
Fine is coarse. Fine is sad and sweet and crude and beautiful. Fine is scurrilously funny while making your bottom lip tremble. Fine is a rallying cry for growing old riotously, for not going gently and for not judging people by the state of their recycling bins.
- GenresFiction
222 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 4, 2024
4 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 18, 2025
This is my first fiction book of 2025 and if the rest I read this year are half as good as this un then I’m gonna be in for a good one. I have previously read short pieces of work by Higgins and had a good laugh, when I saw his debut novel was out I jumped at the chance to read it and it doesn’t disappoint, it’s been a long time since a book has made me laugh this much. In fact I recently saw a discussion on one of the social media platforms recently asking the question “What book has made you laugh out loud the most?” I can say with 100% certainty that it is this beauty.
Our main character is Paul Reverb, great name, seems nice enough, a gentle well meaning person and what follows is a series of ridiculous events. Paul is lonely, tragically so it seems at times, nothing seems to go his way, in fact things seem to become sentient enough to make sure they don’t go his way, from buying a coffee, meeting mates in the pub or a nice quiet toss in the privacy of his own lounge, when Paul puts his mind on a task you soon learn to spot the incoming catastrophe. I felt so bad that I was laughing at his misfortune, at one time I actually told myself to stop laughing cos it’s mean. It doesn’t take long before Paul has got under your skin and you’re hoping that he somehow breaks the curse and gets a happy ending or at least a happy moment and as I started to run out of pages I was worrying that I may have to kidnap Higgins and do a Misery on him to get the ending I wanted.
One fun bit of this book was the nostalgia, I’m guessing I’m of a similar age to Paul because the music, TV and misc items from his past are all things I remember. Highlight moment was Paul listening to Tiny Tears by The Tindersticks, I listened to this so many times, had it on cassette and had to keep rewinding to find the start of the song. Paul is a legend for bringing this back to me.
Absolutely wonderful book, great characters, funniest writing ever and if you ever wanted to get into the head of a horny lonely man then this is the book for you.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2025...
Our main character is Paul Reverb, great name, seems nice enough, a gentle well meaning person and what follows is a series of ridiculous events. Paul is lonely, tragically so it seems at times, nothing seems to go his way, in fact things seem to become sentient enough to make sure they don’t go his way, from buying a coffee, meeting mates in the pub or a nice quiet toss in the privacy of his own lounge, when Paul puts his mind on a task you soon learn to spot the incoming catastrophe. I felt so bad that I was laughing at his misfortune, at one time I actually told myself to stop laughing cos it’s mean. It doesn’t take long before Paul has got under your skin and you’re hoping that he somehow breaks the curse and gets a happy ending or at least a happy moment and as I started to run out of pages I was worrying that I may have to kidnap Higgins and do a Misery on him to get the ending I wanted.
One fun bit of this book was the nostalgia, I’m guessing I’m of a similar age to Paul because the music, TV and misc items from his past are all things I remember. Highlight moment was Paul listening to Tiny Tears by The Tindersticks, I listened to this so many times, had it on cassette and had to keep rewinding to find the start of the song. Paul is a legend for bringing this back to me.
Absolutely wonderful book, great characters, funniest writing ever and if you ever wanted to get into the head of a horny lonely man then this is the book for you.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2025...
November 18, 2024
This is funny. It's really really funny. Fine
On reading a review in The New York Times no less, which deems John Patrick Higgins' FINE a "witty, tragicomic debut" I had to get a read. It's not Higgins's first or second turn in print but FINE is a proper shiny novel which only serves to allow bigger, better observations and set up longer better gags. "...he had small brown eyes, wet as apple pips. They appeared to be processing information about me. I sucked my stomach in." The novel is told by Paul Reverb, a middle aged writer trying his best in a world that seems to have set up special challenges just for him. Or is it Campbell's hero's journey, it might well be. It's thick with popular culture references with which we all ought to be familiar and difficulties encountered by all, like the slam of the off licence door when booze is thin at home or being caught out looking at niche but widely available websites. There's also a love interest but I'll leave it there for fear of spilling the beans. (This is not a reference to the earlier niche websites.) I hope there's a playlist and that all the chapter titles are lyrics from songs I know and want to know.
On reading a review in The New York Times no less, which deems John Patrick Higgins' FINE a "witty, tragicomic debut" I had to get a read. It's not Higgins's first or second turn in print but FINE is a proper shiny novel which only serves to allow bigger, better observations and set up longer better gags. "...he had small brown eyes, wet as apple pips. They appeared to be processing information about me. I sucked my stomach in." The novel is told by Paul Reverb, a middle aged writer trying his best in a world that seems to have set up special challenges just for him. Or is it Campbell's hero's journey, it might well be. It's thick with popular culture references with which we all ought to be familiar and difficulties encountered by all, like the slam of the off licence door when booze is thin at home or being caught out looking at niche but widely available websites. There's also a love interest but I'll leave it there for fear of spilling the beans. (This is not a reference to the earlier niche websites.) I hope there's a playlist and that all the chapter titles are lyrics from songs I know and want to know.
April 6, 2025
Just brilliant. Proper laugh out loud. Not the ‘laugh out loud’ you see over-used in book reviews.
January 21, 2026
Absolutely Brilliant! Enjoyed the wonderful tone and extraordinarily crafted comedic cadence woven into Paul's 'ridiculous' life events .... such a great ending!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews