diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 7d62ad6..d33baa9 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ Encoding: UTF-8
 Roxygen: list(markdown = TRUE)
 RoxygenNote: 7.2.3
 Imports:
+    glue,
     httr
 Suggests: 
     knitr,
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index 6441900..0a75ac3 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -11,5 +11,8 @@ importFrom(httr,GET)
 importFrom(httr,POST)
 importFrom(httr,add_headers)
 importFrom(httr,content)
+importFrom(httr,http_error)
+importFrom(httr,http_status)
+importFrom(httr,status_code)
 importFrom(httr,stop_for_status)
 importFrom(httr,timeout)
diff --git a/R/cancel.R b/R/cancel.R
index 9a8d1df..082056f 100644
--- a/R/cancel.R
+++ b/R/cancel.R
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ proof_cancel <- function() {
     proof_header(),
     timeout(proofr_env$timeout_sec)
   )
-  # FIXME: better error handling - surface error messages
-  stop_for_status(response)
+  stop_for_message(response)
   content(response, as = "parsed")
 }
diff --git a/R/http.R b/R/http.R
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c431700
--- /dev/null
+++ b/R/http.R
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+stop_for_message <- function(response) {
+  if (http_error(response)) {
+    parsed <- tryCatch(content(response), error = function(e) e)
+    if (inherits(parsed, "error")) stop_for_status(response)
+    if (!is.list(parsed)) stop_for_status(response)
+    msg <- glue::glue(
+      "{http_status(response)$reason}",
+      " (HTTP {status_code(response)})",
+      " {parsed$message}"
+    )
+    stop(msg, call. = FALSE)
+  }
+}
diff --git a/R/proofr-package.R b/R/proofr-package.R
index a13fd5f..801d48c 100644
--- a/R/proofr-package.R
+++ b/R/proofr-package.R
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 
 ## usethis namespace: start
 #' @importFrom httr GET POST DELETE add_headers content
-#' stop_for_status timeout
+#' stop_for_status timeout http_status status_code
+#' http_error
 ## usethis namespace: end
 NULL
diff --git a/R/start.R b/R/start.R
index 9d698b2..ebe5d60 100644
--- a/R/start.R
+++ b/R/start.R
@@ -19,7 +19,6 @@ proof_start <- function(pi_name = NULL) {
     encode = "json",
     timeout(proofr_env$timeout_sec)
   )
-  # FIXME: better error handling - surface error messages
-  stop_for_status(response)
+  stop_for_message(response)
   content(response, as = "parsed")
 }
diff --git a/R/status.R b/R/status.R
index fb0e861..a41ff3d 100644
--- a/R/status.R
+++ b/R/status.R
@@ -21,6 +21,6 @@ proof_status <- function() {
     proof_header(),
     timeout(proofr_env$timeout_sec)
   )
-  stop_for_status(response)
+  stop_for_message(response)
   content(response, as = "parsed")
 }