A Dirty Job: A Novel | Christopher Moore | Perfect gift for a hearse driver.

A Dirty Job: A Novel | Christopher Moore | The Moore I read, the Moore I like Moore

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A Dirty Job: A Novel

	A Dirty Job: A Novel Christopher Moore William Morrow, 2006 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 162 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Perfect gift for a hearse driver.

Christopher Moore seems to love putting the mystical, fantastical and improbable into his novels - while at the same time providing the detail and feeling of the real world to such and extent that the reader forgets the improbabilities and sinks into the story. I would highly recommend his books to all who love satirical tales which involve the supernatural.

Charlie Asher finds himself dealing with death in a highly personal way as he tries to navigate life as a widower and father of a newborn daughter while accepting the fact that he's also been recruited to be a Death Merchant. This tale had me chuckling from the very beginning with poignant insight such as this from page 19:

"Charlie hadn't really counted on killing a guy that morning. He had hoped to get some twenties for the register at the thrift store, check his balance, and maybe pick up some yellow mustard at the deli. (Charlie was not a brown mustard kind of guy. Brown mustard was the condiment equivalent of skydiving - it was okay for racecar drivers and serial killers, but for Charlie, a fine line of French's yellow was all the spice that life required)" [...]

If this brief, yet masterful parable isn't enough to convince you of Moore's prowess with words and truth, here's another example - a description of a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham.

"The 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was the perfect show-off of death machines. It consisted of nearly three tons of steel stamped into a massively mawed, high-tailed beast lined with enough chrome to build a Terminator and still have parts left over - most of it in long, sharp strips that peeled off on impact and became lethal scythes to flay away pedestrian flesh. Under the four headlights it sported two chrome bumper bullets that looked like unexploded torpedoes or triple-G-cup Madonna death boobs. It had a noncollapsible steering column that would impale the driver upon any serious impact, electric windows that could pinch off a kid's head, no seat belts, and a 325 horsepower V8 with such appallingly bad fuel efficiency that you could hear it trying to slurp liquefied dinosaurs out of the ground when it passed. It had a top speed of a hundred and ten miles an hour, mushy, bargelike suspension that could in no way stabilize the car at that speed, and undersized power brakes that wouldn't stop it either. The fins jutting from the back were so high and sharp that the car was a lethal threat to pedestrians even when parked, and the whole package sat on tall, whitewall tires that looked, and generally handled, like oversized powdered doughnuts. Detroit couldn't have achieved more deadly finned ostentatia if they'd covered a killer whale in rhinestones. It was a masterpiece."

A Dirty Job is a perfect gift for someone you know who drives a hearse and loves to read - I know because I do both.

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The Moore I read, the Moore I like Moore

This is hilarious. It's rare that I laugh outloud while reading but this book got me going. The characters are just great - I especially like Minty Fresh in his green suits. I enjoy reading about the different locations, bus routes, etc in San Francisco which is a city I will be discovering more in the next 4 years and I'm sure I saw the Emperor when I was there down by the wharf.

Worth reading if you are in need of a laugh!

Dark subject handled with humor and grace

I am not going to go over major plot points. In a nutshell, this book is about a man who becomes Death with a capital D (death personified), sort of (read the book for further explanation). Christopher Moore is an outstanding writer who had me laughing out loud one moment and then moved by poignancy the next (amid all the comedy and wacky supernatural stuff there really are some messages about life, and death, and love here). Even if you don't subscribe to some of the Buddhist beliefs about death (which I think are really an underlying subtext to this book), there's a lot of meaning to be found here. I really loved this book and even though the last few chapters had to work really hard to tie up a lot of loose ends, it really was enjoyable from start to finish (even with the silly last line of the book). I have only read a few of Moore's books so now...I'm on to the next one on my list!!!

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A new author to me but a must read from now on.

While bizarre and strange, Christopher Moore's mind id like a steel trap as he carries the thought of mortality through the entire novel and engages my sense of humor throughout. This guy is really good. I loved this book

Fun as usual

As usual, Moore delivers a fun and darkly quirky book that focuses on the supernatural. The overall story is great (how can you NOT love a book that features a character named Minty Fresh?), but my favorite parts of the book were in the smaller moments, such as the different analyzes of the personalities of Beta Males, the woman who adds "like bear" after everything she says, Charlie's attempts at street slang, and his recovery from mourning. You can pretty much predict the reveal at the end, but it's worth sticking around for the ride.

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