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A Dirty Job
by Christopher Moore
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About This Book
ISBN13: 9780060590284 
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Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy. A little hapless, somewhat neurotic, sort of a hypochondriac. He's what's known as a Beta Male: the kind of fellow who makes his way through life by being careful and constant — you know, the one who's always there to pick up the pieces when the girl gets dumped by the bigger/taller/stronger Alpha Male.
But Charlie's been lucky. He owns a building in the heart of San Francisco, and runs a secondhand store with the help of a couple of loyal, if marginally insane, employees. He's married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. And she, Rachel, is about to have their first child.
Yes, Charlie's doing okay for a Beta. That is, until the day his daughter, Sophie, is born. Just as Charlie — exhausted from the birth — turns to go home, he sees a strange man in mint-green golf wear at Rachel's hospital bedside, a man who claims that no one should be able to see him. But see him Charlie does, and from here on out, things get really weird.
People start dropping dead around him, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death. It's a dirty job. But hey, somebody's gotta do it.
Christopher Moore, the man whose Lamb served up Jesus' "missing years" (with the funny parts left in), and whose Fluke found the deep humor in whale researchers' lives, now shines his comic light on the undiscovered country we all eventually explore — death and dying — and the results are hilarious, heartwarming, and a hell of a lot of fun.
Review:
"Cult-hero Moore (The Stupidest Angel) tackles death — make that Death — in his latest wonderful, whacked-out yarn. For beta male Charlie Asher, proprietor of a shop in San Francisco, life and death meet in a maternity ward recovery room where his wife, Rachel, dies shortly after giving birth. Though security cameras catch nothing, Charlie swears he saw an impossibly tall black man in a mint green suit standing beside Rachel as she died. When objects in his store begin glowing, strangers drop dead before him and man-sized ravens start attacking him, Charlie figures something's up. Along comes Minty Fresh — the man in green — to enlighten him: turns out Charlie and Minty are Death Merchants, whose job (outlined in the Great Big Book of Death) is to gather up souls before the Forces of Darkness get to them. While Charlie's employees, Lily the Goth girl and Ray the ex-cop, mind the shop, and two enormous hellhounds babysit, Charlie attends to his dangerous soul-collecting duties, building toward a showdown with Death in a Gold Rush-era ship buried beneath San Francisco's financial district. If it sounds over the top, that's because it is — but Moore's enthusiasm and skill make it convincing, and his affection for the cast of weirdos gives the book an unexpected poignancy." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
"Dizzyingly inventive and hypnotically engaging, A Dirty Job is...like no other book I've ever read." Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Son of a Witch
Review:
"One of the antic Moore's funniest capers yet." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"This novel makes light of hellhounds, demons and outlandishly costumed squirrel cadavers....For all its tumultuous lunacy, A Dirty Job requires the occasional level-headed individual to provide a semblance of focus." New York Times
Review:
"A Dirty Job offers wit, chaos, subversion and a chance to flip death the middle finger." Portland Oregonian
Review:
"To keep a straight face while reading this book, one would have to be dead already and in the final stages of rigor mortis." Rocky Mountain News
Review:
"Smart people will be enormously amused." Library Jounral
Review:
"[T]his showcases Moore's most distinctive gift: maintaining a breakneck pace while seemingly just numbly fumbling along." Booklist
Review:
"Moore's signature tossed-off humor is in full effect...and it's easy to care about his warm, lumpy, honest characters. Because of that, we'll forgive the occasional talking bobcat with a torso made of ham. You heard me." (Grade: B) Entertainment Weekly
Synopsis:
< p> Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay& #8212; until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death. < /p> < p> It's a dirty job. But, hey Somebody's gotta do it. < /p>
About the Author
Christopher Moore is the author of A Dirty Job, The Stupidest Angel, Fluke, Lamb, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Bloodsucking Fiends, Coyote Blue and Practical Demonkeeping.
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 6 comments:
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Davey929, August 26, 2008 (view all comments by Davey929)
This is the best Christopher Moore I have read. It's bizarre and tangental and hilarious, and it still deals with death in a way that is both strange and sweet. The characters are, as always, colorful, and I found myself wanting to know more after I turned the last page (the sign of a very good read).
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velveetahead, May 11, 2008 (view all comments by velveetahead)
A man loses his wife just after she gives birth to their daughter and he discovers he is a death merchant that needs to collect soul objects after people die.
I loved this book. I loved the way Christopher Moore constructs sentences. For example, instead of just saying that someone told someone else to hold on one second. Instead he writes, "Charlie was going to try to come up with some kind of answer when his cell phone rang and he held up his finger to pause time." I found the way he described completely normal, everyday situations in highly amusing and often comical ways.
The main character is very identifiable since he is just an average guy who gets sucked into being a grim reaper, but doesn't know all the rules and not sure if he is doing anything correctly. While he stumbles around trying to figure that out, he has his young daughter to contend with who is a little bit odd, but he still thinks she is an angel, even when she brings hellhounds home as pets. It only gets better from there.
Even with all the humor, the story was not just a light little story. There was thrilling aspects and a lot of suspense and tension in the major storyline and between characters. A lot of research was done about underworld aspects or a lot of imagination (if there was no research involved) about the entire underworld. It is a full-fledged story with humor to break through all the dark stuff. It really made me want to read other books by the author.
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katherine stevenson, October 13, 2007 (view all comments by katherine stevenson)
A freakin' crack-up ... if you have a good sense of humor and love imaginative stories.. this is a great read... Moore is also fantastic at merging his characters from different stories together.. you will find characters and events from Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck ... I absolutly love it !
Also, if you have a chance to listen to the CD or audio version of this book .. it is great .. they add extra sound clips/music to it which makes it more enjoyable.
View all 6 comments
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780060590284
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Harper Paperbacks
- Author:
- Subject:
- Humorous
- Subject:
- General Fiction
- Publication Date:
- April 2007
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 405
- Dimensions:
- 7.98x5.36x1.00 in. .67 lbs.
