Someone Should Pay for Your Pain
A Novel
Someone Should Pay for Your Pain by Franz Nicolay hits the backroads with singer-songwriter Rudy Pauver as he navigates a conflicted relationship with a successful protégé and the unexpected arrival of his spirited young niece.
In the doldrums of a career as a cult figure, Rudy has been overshadowed by Ryan Orland, to the point where Rudy is now identified as an imitator of the younger man. Ryan is generous and supportive, but Rudy finds it hard to be grateful, especially as a sordid confrontation results in their estrangement. When his sister’s daughter, a teenage runaway, turns up asking to join him on the road, Rudy has to come to terms with the limits of his ambition and the nature of his obligation to family.
Someone Should Pay for Your Pain is an exploration of the nature of creativity and popular success; artistic and ethical influence; the pathos of the middle-aged artist; changing standards of sexual morality; and guilt and penance in a post-religious society.
Reading group guide available to download from publisher's website.
Named one of Rolling Stone's "Best Music Books of 2021."
Franz Nicolay is a writer and musician, a member of The Hold Steady and other projects. His first book, The Humorless Ladies of Border Control: Touring the Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar, was named a “Season’s Best Travel Book” by the New York Times; his second, the novel Someone Should Pay for Your Pain, was called "a knockout fiction debut" in Buzzfeed and named one of Rolling Stone's "Best Music Books of 2021." He has taught at UC Berkeley, and is a faculty member in music and written arts at Bard College. He lives in New York's Hudson Valley.
