Mike is not the only one whose obsessions litter Fear of Tennis. Jason, who holds his racquet even when he is at rest, spends evenings watching videos of his tennis practice. Halfway through, the book picks up pace. We meet Gary, Jason’s tennis coach, who tries to avert Jason’s tantrums with such aphorisms as ‘never surrender to the chemistry of anger’. While maintaining this rekindled friendship with Jason, and constantly training, Mike is holding down his job, and trying to find ways to woo a female colleague, who is studying the Old Testament.

The humour derives from Mike’s assumptions and from his inability to communicate them to people. The situation is interesting enough, highlighting as it does the possible lengths that people can go to for redemption; but the prose, monotonous to reflect the orderliness of Mike’s life, makes this a dull read. The book needed a good edit and proof-reading; this would not be worth mentioning if its absence wasn’t so distracting. By far the best thing about the novel is Gary; he is the caricature of the sports-crazed, adrenalin-fuelled trainer who quotes from the Tao Te Ching and, like Jason, doesn’t see humour in anything.