A Dirty Job audiobook

Christopher Moore - image from the Portland Mercury Charlie Asher is a pretty regular guy having a regular life, until he sees death hovering over his wife following the birth of their first child. Strange things begin to happen and it takes a while before Charlie learns that he has been selected as a Death Merchant, a collector of the souls of those nearly or recently deceased. The job comes with a rulebook which, like most instructional manuals is of limited value. It gets even weirder when he learns that his baby girl has a bit of power all her own. Moore’s cast of quirky characters includes dueling babysitters, middle aged ladies from China and Russia, a goth 16-year-old assistant and an ex-cop who works for him in his second hand shop. His lesbian sister is quite sympathetic even if she does keep stealing suits from his closet. And oh, yeah, he is pursued by creatures from below, sewer-harpies who long to return to the land above for a little bloodletting, with Charlie and his baby topping their menus. This is literally laugh-out-loud funny. He goes a bit too dark I thought in describing details of the harpies’ endeavors, but this is a wonderful, fun read. =============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages, plus his stand-alone blog

As if upbringing wasn´t hard enough, a metaphysical, forced second job doesn´t really make it any easier.It would be interesting to know where Pratchett took his inspiration for DEATH and if Moore was inspired by him, very probably, or by some other author who thought that personifying death or making him a franchise seeking, overworked dealer of doom, wouldn´t be sweet.But the real kicker of this thing is the fact that (view spoiler)[his daughter has some power too, as if it wasn´t obvious after seeing the cover, maybe I am a bit overprotective helicopter parenting here regarding protecting you from spoilers. (hide spoiler)] which opens up the room for the real hilarity, quicker cuts, and more dynamic plot development. It´s enjoyable how the cast of weird sidekicks and secondary characters react to the new development, indirectly making fun of stereotypes about these groups, upbringing, and, I am not sure about this, babies and infants? Ok, they are of course ridiculous too, these huge heads, clumsy, kind of, meh, let´s be honest, totally useless and unproductive, a socioeconomically dead period of life. The thing that is missing in Moore´s work, except his work Lamb, while it´s a substantial element of Ruffs´, Pratchett´s, Robbins´, Boyle´s, although he isn´t really funny but depressing, etc. creations, is the meta, social criticism level. Slapstick, weird characters, hilarious dialogues, the one or other critical innuendo, but not more than that. That´s especially strange because, as mentioned, Lamb is one of the most amazing clerical criticisms of all time, making fun of faith in a way that´s amazing, being entertaining and educating, not too extremely blasphemous, but definitively not tame too. For any reason, Moore preferred to position himself as a more easygoing, trivial, 2dimensional comedy writer, instead of expanding towards the full 3D, full in your face satire. Even stranger, subjectively it must be much harder to write funny dialogues and situations in contrast to just adding some indirect, boring, social criticism in some dialogues or expositional actions. But possibly I am misunderstanding something and the reason is that it´s much harder to construct full frontal, sophisticated satire that has much fewer options than haha he fell and died humor, so I maybe kind of self explained it. On the other hand, again, Lamb was his greatest hit, so maybe it´s more a question of time effort, producing 2 to 3 good works instead of one great, because it showed that he knew and was able to combine lowbrow and highbrow satire to a masterpiece. However, in the not so big comedy writing universe, Moore is a relatively stable star without much danger of unexpected, rhetoric protuberances that gamma ray burst away lifetime wasted with unfunny satire, having 3 to 5 very good and some good reads, what a wordplay thank me later for free promotion social cataloging network, easygoing and quick for in between, perfect between the more heavy, dark comedy stuff that´s waiting out there too if you are in the lucky position of not having explored this genre. Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Go read this book. Now. It's hilarious, you will not regret it. That is all the review it requires. =)

Let me preface this by saying I LOVE Christopher Moore. L-O-V-E. If he wrote a grocery list, I'd read it rapturously. This book (along with Lamb, which I will also review shortly) is one of my absolute favorites of his. "A Dirty Job" may be his funniest, wittiest book yet (although "Lamb" is pretty close....). This book has the average Beta male, Charlie Asher, his dead wife, their newborn daughter, little old Asian and Russian babysitters, a jailbait goth girl store clerk, expensive suits, hellhounds, Death Merchants, Three Fingered Hu (the drycleaner and his granddaughter Cindy Lou Hu...get it???), squirrels in tutus, Filipino she-male dating sites, and a seven foot tall black record store owner driving a Cadillac Eldorado and dressed in green suits whose name is Minty Fresh, AND it is dedicated to hospice workers and the important work they do. How could you not love it?? Moore has a smart, comical way of writing that just tickles my brain in that oh so delicious way that makes me just love language even more, and this book does not disappoint. His surreal, absurdist humor is sublime. However, he tempers that humour with a compassion,a humanness, an ability to make one look at universal truths and the human condition (in this book's case, death, dying, love, how we deal with our fears and the death of those we love, different tenents of world religions, destiny, the epic battle of good vs. evil, etc). When one looks past the comedy, one can see so much more in his novels. His writing is irreverent, wickedly fun, engaging, thoughtful and leaves you smiling, satisfied, giggling (and groaning) and full of all sorts of metaphysical thoughts. Moore thoroughly draws you into his unique world and completely engages you. And this book is set in San Francisco and is full of lovely little descriptions and anecdotes about the city (which had me snickering and nodding as I love SF, but even if you don't know the city, it will make you feel like you'd like to). I'm one of those people who, when I read a book I enjoy this much, love to jot down the poignant, funny, smart lines that really struck me or made me say "now THIS is writing"; with this book, it was just too big a task. There are delightful one-liners peppered throughout, beautiful passages, and dialogue that has me snickering every other page. All in all, this book vies for the title My Favorite Moore Book, and definitely for one of the funniest books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Try it: you'll giggle, you'll sigh, you'll think. Trust me. Like Bear. *giggle, snort*

I struggled to find a pigeonhole for this book, so I did a quick internet search to find some help. This just confused me more -- take your pick of genres: dark humour, supernatural horror, absurdist fiction, paranormal and more. Whatever it is, I found it to be funny.Is it my usual fancy? Probably not. I generally like my humorous reads to straddle the edge of believability, and this went a bit further than that. I accept though the boundaries of other people's imaginations can stretch a lot further than mine.The book is slickly written and it tweaked my funnybone quite a few times. It is a good story with some wonderfully bizarre characters, which I very much like. I was fine with the sexual references.I confess it took me six weeks to read this book. But my sluggishness had much more to do with my busy work schedule than the ease of the read. Having cleared my work commitments, I ripped through the last third of the book today. I found the ending to be a rollercoaster, with a nice little twist at the end.

What is that, you might ask? Well, in Moore's words:"When Alpha Males set out to conquer neighboring tribes, to count coups and take heads, Beta Males could see in advance that in the event of victory, the influx of female slaves was going to leave a surplus of mateless women cast out for younger trophy models, with nothing to do but salt down the heads and file the uncounted coups, and some would find solace in the arms of any Beta Male smart enough to survive.... The world is led by Alpha Males, but the machinery of the world turns on the bearings of the Beta Male....When Charlie finds himself a widower with an infant daughter, his Beta Male imagination can't find any way to cope. Until he finds that he's been chosen for a new avocation - a Merchant of Death. His job is to collect souls, bound to objects owned by the dying, and to make sure they get into the right hands. People come to his shop, Asher's Secondhand, and buy what they need. And occasionally, they need a soul.For such a funny book, Moore has put a really interesting metaphysical idea in this book. That idea is kind of creepy - not everybody has a soul. At least, not all the time. Souls need to learn and develop. Unfortunately, one person's life is not always enough time in which to learn those important lessons. So when the body dies, the soul moves on. But not necessarily into another person. Sometimes it might go into an object - a CD, a pair of sneakers, an umbrella - to await their next body. Charlie Asher's job - his and the other Merchants of Death - is to make sure those souls are kept safe until their next owners come by to collect them.Of course, it's never quite that easy. While being a Merchant of Death certainly helps Charlie in the years following his wife's death, there are Dark Forces out there who want those souls. With human souls, the Dark Forces will become stronger, strong enough to decide who will be the Luminatus - the new, true Death.This book packs a lot into nearly 400 pages. There's the humor, of course, the absurdist fantasy humor that Christopher Moore does so very well. But there's also the philosophy of souls that I hadn't come across before, and - most central to the book - a good hard look at death.This book is dedicated in part to hospice workers, the people who volunteer to help people out of this life and into the next, the people who have the strength to deal with one of the most frightening aspects of human existence. While Moore's presentation of death and dying certainly isn't pretty, or necessarily reassuring, it isn't scary. It's purposeful and important and, more importantly, bigger than the person who is doing the dying. From time to time, we all need to look at this inevitability and resolve to meet it with the same dignity and reverence that we would meet any other great moment in our lives. For a guy who makes a living writing funny fantasy/horror, Moore has done a very nice job at making his point.Oh, and I mentioned before the subject of his endings, how they usually seem to be kind of forced and too fast. This is better than his earlier works, although you do kind of see the ending coming from really far away. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but perhaps a bit like death itself - you know what the ending will be, but you try to make yourself forget so that it'll be a surprise when you get there.... Or something.

A Dirty Job is a hell of a book.Get it? Hell-of-a-book?Eh.Christopher Moore is one sick bastard. That’s the only explanation I came up with for the stuff he threw at me.And yes, that’s a compliment. This guy rocks.So what do we have here? A total geeky Beta Male who becomes Death. Check. Snoop Dogg aka Minty Fresh (yes, that is his real name) as a faithful sidekick. Check. A baby who owns two hellhounds and kills with the word “kitty”. Check.Hot bird creatures that give men hand jobs in dark alleys. Check. Squirrel creatures in pink tutus. Check. Yep, this book has it all.Would I recommend? Yes, totally. But only if you’re into dark humor and don’t mind the whole death mood that Moore has going on.One of my favorite scenes in the book:(view spoiler)[ Mint Green Death sighed heavily. “I guess we’re going to be here awhile. I’m going to make some coffee. Do you want some?” “Sure, try to lull me into a false sense of security, then spring.” “You’re tied the fuck up, motherfucker, I don’t need to lull you into shit. You’ve been fucking with the fabric of human existence and someone needed to shut your ass down.” “Oh, sure, go black on me. Play the ethnic card.” Mint Green climbed to his feet and headed toward the door to the shop. “You want cream?” “And two sugars, please,” Charlie said. (hide spoiler)]["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>["br"]>

Wow, this was a very pleasant surprise (it's my first book by this author).Meet Charlie Asher. He's quite neurotic. Especially ever since the love of his life got pregnant. It's therefore an especially cruel twist of fate when his dearly beloved actually turns into his dearly departed after giving birth to one hell of a baby girl.But that is only the opening paragraph in what soon becomes a hilarious jaunt through San Francisco, collecting souls and trying desperately NOT to come to the attention of the SFPD.You see, Charlie has been chosen to act as a reaper. Death (with a capital D) has disappeared some time ago and the Forces of Darkness have tried to rise ever since. Or so a book is telling the reapers. A book that is kinda like a manual. Only, the book seems to be different depending on where the respective reaper lives. And since they aren't supposed to talk to one another, there is a big margin for error. Plus, some refuse to believe the reaper thing is real in the first place.Like Charlie, who has enough on his hands with his kid, who seems to kill any and all pets he can get her and definitely is taught the wrong things by her auntie and two babysitters (a Chinese and a Russian neighbor). It's hard being a working dad but even more so if you own a secondhand clothing store and one of your employees is a spontaneously and incorrectly French speaking nihilist while the other is a paranoid ex-cop who is hopeless with hook-up apps.Squirrel assassins in ballroom gowns, horny ravens, and two hellhounds with frankly ridiculous names are also part of the cast.Sounds chaotic? Ridiculous even? Well, you've seen nothing yet! When the Emperor of San Francisco is the most normal and sane person of the bunch, you know you're in for a wild ride.And wild it was. Humour is a fickle thing and it's often a fine line between funny and trying-too-hard. I'm happy to let you know that this author definitely is funny. Hilarious even. I could quote at least half the book (see the numerous quotes I did highlight) and still wouldn't do it justice. I burst out laughing so many times, I had to wipe tears out of my eyes.On to the sequel!

I've read a couple of books by Christopher Moore, his masterpiece Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal and Practical Demonkeeping. I loved them both so I figured I'd pick this one up. "A Dirty Job" is very well put together, and a funny book, all right, but not hysterically funny as I was expecting it to be, oh well, that's personal. All in all, a solid novel, I liked it, 4 well deserved stars.

This happened to be exactly what I needed. This is a humorous fantasy that combines neato horror elements in all the most absurd ways. Everyman Charlie, together with his cute-as-a-button baby girl, thinks he's the personification of Death.Of course, the big, funny, spoilery bit that is the wonderful cover of this book should not be overlooked. That's what's really funny about all this. The poor guy is just not up to the job. And then there are the hellhounds.The tweaks, the auto-insults, the truly absurd situations, people, and monsters he gets involved with are all topped with some of the best constantly-coming zingers that I've read in years. I know that humor is a very subjective thing, but this one constantly builds and builds upon itself. It starts out smirkworthy, but as it keeps adding to itself, I was boiled alive in laughter.Yes, this is my first Christopher Moore. I can't believe I've never tried him before. I'm SO glad I have. These days need a great dose of funny.