A Dirty Job

by Christopher Moore

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060590270
• ISBN13: 9780060590277
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Funny, with likeable characters, but some might find the language offensive

I enjoyed this overall, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series. Charlie Asher is a very likeable character (though the beta male description did get a bit redundant). I've read other works by Christopher Moore and this one didn't disappoint.

Juvenile, sophomoric, frat boy humor

In short, Charlie Asher Is Become Death. Sounds like a decent premise, but this book is truly a waste of time. It's rare for me to give up on a book I've already invested time on, but having slogged through a third of this one, I was not about to endure any more. If you like middle school level humor, casual white male privilege that thinks it's cute, or reading the phrase "beta male" seventy thousand billion times, then this may be the book for you. Moore has evidently been told how hilarious he is so often that he never says in one sentence what he can stretch out to five in order to include all his knee slappers. Ugh. The characters here are not really characters, they are caricatures. The plot had promise, but Moore tangles it up in so much nonsense and convoluted silliness that it leaves the reader wondering WT exact F? I found it not to be worth the effort of finding out. By the time I had waded through the easy shots at women, Asians, and blacks, I'd had enough. You don't have to be the PC Police to know stupid. NOT recommended.

Hilarious in a macabre kinda way

My husband actually is the one that urged me to read this one. He knew I would love it and bought it for me. It was so great. I can't wait to read the next one.

The best Moore book yet!

The best Moore book yet, and I've read almost all of them. Hilarious and well thought out.

Death and Dying, What a Hoot!

In `A Dirty Job' author Christopher Moore creates a wildly imaginative, often hilarious world of Death that somehow manages to be poignant at the same time. How does he do that?? I don't know, but it's a lot of fun, a great read, and yet touches the human spirit. Moore's protagonist Charlie Asher, a mild-mannered recently widowed dealer in used goods is unsettled to discover that he has somehow become a Death Merchant. He has to track down people who have just died or are about to die and collect their soul vessel so it can be passed on to somebody else who really needs it. Simple enough, or so it seems until the Morrigan show up. The Morrigan are large black bird-like creatures who live in the storm sewers of San Francisco. They are at odds with Asher and his colleagues. And then some of the people who are supposed to die don't. Lack of death causes a Death Merchant a lot of trouble. It turns out that the lack of death is no accident, but is the result of a third-party intervention that involves really strange creatures made up of parts of dead animals sewn together and wearing nightgowns. So, how does all that rollicking weirdness get poignant? Well, underneath all the weirdness, his book really is about Death, the death of spouses and mothers and lovers and how we deal with it. Moore's Note and Acknowledgement explain his inspiration for some of his ideas, including the dead animals in dresses. Check out art by Monique Motil. It can be found on the web and it's, uhh interesting. A Dirty Job is a lot of fun, a quick read, that's sure to brighten your day (hey, you're not dead yet, are you?).

A wonderful, irreverant ride - a sheer delight.

It's been a long time since I've had this much trouble putting a book down. Christopher Moore creates a fun and dark vibe in this book that you just want to continue to be part of. Moore's hero, Charlie Asher, has spent his whole life trying to play it safe and live under the radar and now he's been recruited as death. Watching Charlie come to terms with his new assignment and all that comes with it is as much fun as I've had reading a book in years. Moore even goes after some relatively weighty topics, but the characters, the author and the book never lose their sense of humor about the story, themselves, or the issues they tackle. That's what keeps the book feeling so fresh from one page to the next. Gotta go now, I'm going to read something else by Christopher Moore. I recommend that you start that process here.

Laugh with Death

How often do you think about death, or even more so about your soul? Well what if soul's were passed from one person to another like hand-me-down jeans? Where would that leave us the teaming masses of earth? Well Christopher Moore tries to tackle the big questions in his latest book A Dirty Job. Our not so gifted hero is Charlie Asher, who is a normal guy, or we should say a normal Beta Male. He has a very active imagination but has lived by flight rather then the fight instinct. He has a pretty good life, a loving sister, and adoring wife and a little baby on the way; then his world comes crashing down around him. First his wife dies, and a mysterious man who only Charlie saw was in her hospital room when she died. He doesn't appear on the security tapes, and no one recalls seeing him. Then things really start getting weird. Charlie has become a `Death Merchant' sort of an assistant to Death, or the equivalent of the Salivation Army's Santa's to Santa. He is a little death, and as such his job is to collect soul objects and pass them on to people without souls. Which as an owner of a second hand store he is in a good position to do. However he does not get receive `The Great Big Book of Death' one of his employee's borrows it for her own amusement. So Charlie does not know what to do, or how to do it but weird things keep happening to him. He keeps showing up when people are dying and there are items that are glowing a bright red. These were the soul vessels. But all is not well in the great city of San Francisco, darkness it trying to rise for the cosmic battle will soon take place between the powers of darkness and the little deaths, before the rising of the Great Death once again. We have a cast of Characters that would put a Shakespeare comedy to proud our Falstaff is the Emperor of San Francisco, a man of the street who knows and care for his city deeply, Charlie's Daughter who is protected by two hellhounds - 400lb dog that eat toasters and small engines named Mohamed & Alvin these two also love eating soap and shampoo, Minty Fresh a used music dealer who is over 6 foot tall and always dressed in green. And many many more. If you have read any of Moore before this one will be even more funny. You go on a walkabout both above and below the city of San Francisco. (First Published in Imprint 2006-05-18 in the column Live it/Hate It Book Reviews)

Buy this book.

How could a book about death be both wildly funny and deeply compassionate? Well, because Chris Moore is the writer. Called one of the country's best satiric writers, Moore has a talent for at once presenting a serious subject (death, Christ) with excellent research and a unique approach, being deeply respectful, and then throwing in a zinger or 20. One page will leave you pondering big questions and the next will have the beverage you just sipped come out your nose as you laugh out loud. In A Dirty Job there are assorted characters - Charlie, of course; his daughter Sophie, fellow death merchant Minty Fresh, and some really creepy bad things who live in the storm drains of San Francisco. Oh, and the two hell hounds. That's all I am going to tell you. Buy it, read it. If you share it with anyone else they will keep it, so plan ahead and buy a few copies up front.