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A Dirty Job

A Novel

Christopher Moore

First published 2006 · 387 pages

A hilariously morbid romp through the bureaucracy of the afterlife, anchored by the fierce love of a neurotic single dad.

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What it feels like

Reading this book feels like riding a runaway cable car through a slightly skewed, supernatural version of San Francisco. It is a masterclass in tonal tightrope walking, seamlessly blending laugh-out-loud absurdity with the very real, very heavy weight of sudden grief. The narrative moves at a brisk, chaotic clip, pulling you through a world where the mundane and the macabre collide in the aisles of a secondhand shop. Despite the morbid subject matter, the atmosphere is surprisingly warm and deeply affectionate toward its cast of neurotic, deeply flawed misfits. It will delight anyone who appreciates dark, irreverent humor but still wants a story anchored by genuine heart, exploring how the most ordinary, anxious people can rise to the most bizarre occasions.

Mood
  • morbidly cheerful
  • chaotic
  • quirky
  • surprisingly tender
Tone
  • irreverent
  • darkly comedic
  • affectionate
  • absurd
  • wry
Pace
brisk
Themes
the absurdity of mortality · single fatherhood · finding courage in anxiety · grief and moving on · the mundane supernatural
The writing
Snappy, conversational, and packed with sharp, irreverent observations that balance laugh-out-loud slapstick with genuine emotional grounding.
The arc
The journey shifts from neurotic panic and sudden, disorienting grief to a bizarrely confident, fiercely protective acceptance of an impossible reality.
Who it's for
Readers who love their existential dread served with a heavy dose of slapstick comedy, quirky urban fantasy, and a surprisingly warm heart.
Content notes
  • death of a spouse
  • grief
  • morbid humor
  • profanity
  • mild gore

About the book

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 the help of a couple of loyal, if marginally insane, employees. He's married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. And she, Rachel, is about to have their first child.Yes, Charlie's doing okay for a Beta. That is, until the day his daughter, Sophie, is born. Just as Charlie -- exhausted from the birth -- turns to go home, he sees a strange man in mint-green golf wear at Rachel's hospital bedside, a man who claims that no one should be able to see him. But see him Charlie does, and from here on out, things get really weird....People start dropping dead around him, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death. It's a dirty job. But hey, somebody's gotta do it.Christopher Moore, the man whose Lamb served up Jesus' "missing years" (with the funny parts left in), and whose Fluke found the deep humor in whale researchers' lives, now shines his comic light on the undiscovered country we all eventually explore -- death and dying -- and the results are hilarious, heartwarming, and a hell of a lot of fun.

Description from Open Library.

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