Reviews

Someone Should Pay for Your Pain by Franz Nicolay

alexhouston's review

5.0

Taking the mid-life crisis of an early-aughts indie rock never-was as his starting point, Franz Nicolay delivers a tight-fisted gut punch of a novel, weaving a road-weary world with a lyricist's skill for evocation, emotion, and economy at once. A solo-acoustic requiem for the un-glamor of every minor scene that briefly felt enormous, and an unflinching and finely rendered vision of old anthems clashing with new ideals, Someone Should Pay for Your Pain is a story of an xennial reckoning unto redemption, which fans of Nicolay's band, The Hold Steady, will appreciate, and which will leave anyone who reads it brimming with ragged hope. A knock-out fiction debut from a long-time troubadour.

cb1984's review

reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

Very very well written. There's lots of really lovely turns of phrase throughout the book. Rudy is a cool character, deeply flawed but with an interesting perspective on things. And the whole thing has that authenticity - I'm assuming some of the situations were inspired by Franz's career.

I think my main complaint is probably the pacing. I just thought that there was a bit too much time spent on Rudy's background and early days in a local hardcore band, which is fine but not massively interesting. And then the later stuff with his struggling career, relationship with his sister, his niece, his protégé and his fans, which I found far more interesting, felt really rushed.

lilis_land's review

dark reflective slow-paced

2.75

futonrevolutionist's review

medium-paced

5.0

moranwehrli's review

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

3.0

Decent prose but not the most excited plot. Would have liked to see Rudy have more character development instead of wallowing in his own wallows. Gets a little much after 200 pages. 

rj42's review

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

It would be hard to overstate just how impressed I was with this book. I came to it as a huge Hold Steady fan, buying it more out of a sense of loyalty than anything, but I was captivated both by the genuine, authentic nature of the story and the sheer quality of Nicolay's descriptive powers. I don't think I've known someone accomplished in another field (in this case, music) to be able to write fiction in such an accomplished manner; it reads like someone who has spent decades honing their novel-writing craft. But most of all, you are absolutely transported to the grimy backroads of the US music scene as his luckless but ultimately romantic hero, Rudy, does the only thing he knows how to do: get on stage and pour his heart out. Is he running from his past and his inability to commit to a more structured life, or is he following his dreams? Nicolay explores the idea in heartbreaking detail. Yes, the ending feels inconclusive and a little too neat, but that doesn't detract from a stunning debut.

lisagray68's review

2.0

I got this book free from Library Thing's early reviewers program. Really not much of a fan of this book. A quick read, but I didn't like the characters and found myself skimming over large swaths of the book.

roseltov's review

dark emotional funny medium-paced

4.75

A beautifully written, evocative book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol

Moderate: Sexual content

edanielle912's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

justinnn98's review against another edition

dark sad slow-paced

3.25