A Dirty Job: A Novel | Christopher Moore | Hilarious! A fantastic dark-humor read

A Dirty Job: A Novel | Christopher Moore | Hilarious

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A Dirty Job: A Novel

	A Dirty Job: A Novel Christopher Moore HarperCollins, 2007 - 405 pages average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Hilarious! A fantastic dark-humor read

I nearly fell off the elliptical machine I was laughing so hard reading this book. Its funny, smart, touching and maliciously dark all at once. Takes place in my home town of San Francisco--a great portrait of the city, as well. Fans of Carl Hiassan and other dark comedy writers must pick this up. But be warned...this is his best, so, don't expect his other works to be this great. They're good, but, this is in a class all its own. :)

Hilarious

The funniest book I've read in years. Moore can make the most mundane events funny and the funny events are spectacular. I give it six stars.

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Snappy Up To, Almost, The End

I have enjoyed every book by Christopher Moore that I have ever read, and "A Dirty Job" is no exception. Moore organizes deadpan and smart-alecky humor into crisp dialog and snappy prose passages that breathe real life into outlandish scenes of supernatural mayhem. His characters are so ridiculously quirky that they actually seem real--Moore just takes pedestrian personality foibles and develops them to their most hilarious ends, and I don't know of any writer who does this as well as Moore (except possibly Gore Vidal in "Live from Golgotha"). This is Moore's stock-in-trade, this is what makes his books so fun to read and so endearingly memorable: these little personality tics that the reader recognizes from real life, which the reader then gets to experience vicariously at their most ridiculous.

Where Moore does fall short from time to time, though, is in his endings, which sometimes seem forced and clipped, as if he had run out of enthusiasm for a story and was already cultivating the next story in his mind, or as if his enthusiasm had allowed a story to run long and an editor was pushing him to wrap it up for publication. Regardless the reason, this is what happens in "A Dirty Job". Each of the characters develops well, as does the story itself, and Moore should be lauded for not recycling his earlier character profiles into his later novels. Charlie Asher, the central character in "A Dirt Job", is not just a reworked character from a previous book, but is a new character who brings his own voice to the story. But that story comes to a weak end, drawn across just a few pages, and this after several hundred pages of depth and good reading. This unsatisfying ending probably warrants the deduction of two stars, but most of the book was too enjoyable for that so I will just deduct one.

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Interesting

Christopher Moore is one of the better authors out there writing on the edge of Fantasy/SF and Horror and specializing in presenting within these genres with a fair amount of humor and chaos.

In this one he tackles a concept that has been looked at by Piers Anthony and in the tv show 'Dead Like Me' and taken it in a direction that neither one really did.

His cast of supporting characters, including the City of San Francisco itself, are very important to making the whole story work well. Unlike most authors he once again has a specific story goal to tell and does not have his mind on how long he can stretch things out or whether he can pile up a bunch of sequels, and this is definitely one of his writing strengths.

His pacing was good, the humor never goes overboard nor drops into the modern 'juvenile' fascination with toilets and the bodily functions therein, and he has obviously done his research on the subjects of death, hospice care, and the history of San Francisco.

I'd definitely recommend this as a keeper. It reads fast, amuses and yet leaves some lingering thoughts when you're done about important 'big picture' subjects in the world.

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This book is unusual. Like bear.(2 and a half stars)

Unlike the previous reviews, I can't give this book a 'rave' 4 or 5-star review. I enjoyed parts of it, and found some examples of Moore's absurdist humor to be hilariously funny, while other times, it just fell flat, or clashed with some of the intentionally serious moments.

The characters are an interesting, 'eclectic' bunch, and certainly typical San Franciscans! I think Charlie and the other 'human' cast members could have worked just as well in a non-fantasy setting. Moore's 'breezy, hip, laid-back' style of writing, and his reliance on repeated jokes(The fractured English of Mrs. Ling and Mrs. Korjev, and mangling of the name of 'Mrs. Poko-Pojo...Irena') wears thin after a while, and the 'supernatural' aspects of the story made it feel too much like a rerun of 'Charmed'.
I have to disagree with those who complimented Moore on his pacing. At times, Moore's tendency to go off on tangents could be frustrating. Occasionally, these tangents set up some of the funnier moments, but at other times they just seemed like padding.
Granted, I'd never read one of Moore's books before, so perhaps his style is an acquired taste.
Looking at the summaries of his other books, I'm interested in reading 'more Moore',particularly 'Lamb', though I still have a few reservations.
I hope he doesn't seize on a particular theme or phrase, and run it into the ground, as he did in this book with the term 'Beta Male'. Establishing a concept as a theme is one thing, but repeating it to the point of cliche(and reader annoyance) is another.
I have a feeling that Dean Koontz could have explored some of the themes of this story in greater depth.

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