A Dirty Job

A Dirty Job Christopher Moore Grade: A (DIK Status) Count me in as a Christopher Moore fangirl! In 2004, while on an Alaskan cruise with family, I followed the recommendation of one-time AAR reviewer Mary Novak and read Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends.

I liked it so much that I wrote about it in my annual "best of" column at the end of that year. Since that time I've wanted to read him again, but since his books are all released - and generally remain only published in - trade format, I forced myself to wait for something that I thought I'd like equally as well. I actually enjoyed A Dirty Job more than BF, so much so that I on the first day I was able to get out of the house while sick this past five weeks, I not only bought his BF sequel...I paid hardcover price for it!

After just a few pages into You Suck: A Love Story, I contacted Moore, and over a period of a week, during the hours I wasn't sleeping off the effects of Tussionex, I conducted an email interview with the man. We finished the interview over the weekend, and you'll be able to read it next month at AAR, depending on when Sandy's interview with Shana Abe goes online.

But I digress...let's get back to A Dirty Job. Here's the one paragraph blurb found on the book's back cover:

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 - 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. It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's gotta do it.

Christopher Moore has an amazing sense of humor, and it's equally matched by his incredible imagination. His use of language, his prose style, and his dialogue, are all sublime in this book, which zipped by so quickly I was tempted to stop reading simply because I didn't want the book to end. If you've not read Moore and you're a fan of MaryJanice Davidson, I think you'll love his writing, and in particular, this book.

A Dirty Job poses this question: What would a beta male do when thrown into situations that would seem to require an alpha male instead? For Moore, the answer is absolutely LOL funny, in the same way both of Bob Newhart's long-lived TV shows were so funny. A pretty normal guy must cope with craziness all around him, and as a result, hilarity ensues, even in matters of life and death, including his own.

What sets Moore's writing aside, particularly in this book, is that the premise is so very dark. The story begins when Charlie's wife gives birth to their baby girl...and dies. What's more, Charlie sees a tall black man in a mint green suit right as his wife dies in her hospital room, and when the security tapes are reviewed, nobody's there. Shortly thereafter Charlie notices that various items in his second-hand shop are glowing red, but again, nobody sees the red glow but him. And then, two weeks later, as Moore writes, "...Charlie left the apartment and walked down to the auto-teller on Columbus Avenue where he first killed a guy. His weapon of choice was the number forty-one bus..."

It would be criminal for me to provide any more synopsis information than this because I want you to discover Moore's world on your own. What I'll add is that there's a rich world of secondary and tertiary characters in A Dirty Job, and each brings something LOL funny to the story, even the villains of the piece, which do not, btw, include Minty Fresh (heretofore mentioned tall black man in mint green suit). Not all of these characters are human, I might add, and it's here where Moore's imagination kicks into over-drive. Again, hilarity ensues.

As for me, once I finish You Suck, I'm going to bite the bullet and pick up more of Moore's backlist.

TTFN, Laurie Likes Books

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