FIRED
“Very funny, odd, clever, brimming with interesting characters and excellent dialogue, made me laugh out loud… I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Terry Gilliam
A gently anarchic oddbod loses a succession of jobs while being drawn into an epic battle between the forces of good and evil.
Fired is a burlesque epic set in a world out of joint, a heroic journey of unself-discovery, a forgiving study of contemporary minds at the end of their tether, a heart-cooling, life-denying violin sonata as Rome burns, a good old fashioned supernatural love-story, an anarchic moonwalk into the Other Place and a black, situational comedy, in the tradition of English losers gloriously, pointlessly and pathetically fighting a battle they cannot win.
Nothing like Fired exists today — except the world itself.
FIRED is available in my online bookshop here. It is also available on Amazon, on most online bookshop websites and you can order it from your local bookshop (which is the better option). Please leave a review somewhere once you’ve read it, it might help someone looking for a book worth reading.
READER REVIEWS
Funny, quirky, very well drawn characters, apt pacing… This is excellent. - Krystina Kellingley (children’s book author)
I [couldn’t] stop reading it. Brilliant characters and dialogue. Hilarious too, it had had me helpless with laughter… - Reader email (‘M.F.’)
Fired is a magnificent work; provocative yet, finally, gentle… Mr Allen is not just imaginative and wise in criss-crossing destinies, but quite remarkably compassionate. - Goodreads review (‘David’)
Superb. I like the Vonnegut feel… Fantastic. - G.L. Davies (author)
This is a must-read novel. It is beautifully written (and designed! Don’t go for the kindle version), captivating and at times off the charts bonkers. It’s also probably the funniest book I’ve read. - Amazon review (‘Gerard’)
A genuine piece of Counterculture at last… Melds together so many disparate parts of our universe, but there is a feeling of wholeness that all true art gives. …Blows the lid off what we think is possible for art in the world at the moment. - Amazon review (‘N.J.’)
…really engaging and very readable, in fact completely absorbing. …On the other hand, utterly mental, totally crackpot, and deeply challenging. …I looked at it afterwards and thought “Can’t believe Amazon actually sells this!”, “Do I put this on my bookshelf or under my bed?”. “What now?” - Amazon Review (‘Dr. Tom’; now deleted)
This book blew my little mind. It is a colossal, all encompassing, thought provoking, and emotion-stirring epic journey. - Amazon Review (‘Jack’)
A riotous rapturous romp of a rollercoaster… Such blissful horror and horrorful bliss. I really don’t quite feel myself. - Reader email (‘Y.P.’)
The best fiction I have read in years. Weirdly compelling, relentlessly bleak, profound and moving and funny… - Amazon review (‘J.Dillon.’)
Genius… A lovely, yet hilariously terrifying ride. Crazy as all hell and brimming with love, unconditional love. I was lying down for some time after. - Reader email (‘Z.H.’)
…unhinged, imaginative, playful, humorous… But, it's also a very useful book I’m finding, a gentle nudge into the zone of unself. - Reader email (‘J.S.’)
This is an easy read to hell and back. Except there is no hell and so much happens. It’s a story in a poem in a musical in a graphic novel… What a journey. - Amazon review (‘Cordobello Mushroom.’)