Hate your job? Well just be happy you aren’t Charlie Asher.
In Christopher Moore’s fantastically-over-the-top novel, A Dirty Job, new father and self proclaimed “Beta Male” Charlie finds himself taking over the worst job imaginable: death.
Shortly after his beloved wife, Rachel, gives birth to their first child, a beautiful baby girl, Charlie’s life takes a turn for the worst. While on his way to visit his wife’s bedside in the hospital, Charlie notices a strange man in the room. The man is none other than Death. No one is able to see Death, except Charlie.
After losing his wife, the hospital sends Charlie home with baby Sophie and a prescription for anti-depressants. As if things haven’t gotten bad enough, people soon begin to drop dead all around him, and large ravens follow him to work and wait outside his home.
Names begin to appear on his bedside table along with a number, and before he can even wrap his mind around who these people are, they die. Whether he likes it or not, Charlie Asher is now the new Death, and hey, someone’s gotta do it.
In Moore’s best selling work of fiction, Charlie learns that although death is messy, complicated, heart breaking and difficult, it is also necessary.
Moore is known for writing a genre classified as absurdist fiction, which centers on the behavior of absurd characters, situations or subjects. While most absurdist fiction is meant to be humorous, the real meaning behind this style of writing is to study human behavior under highly unusual circumstances. No wonder readers often find themselves falling in love with Moore’s outlandish but loveable heroes.
Moore is also known for keeping his reader’s on the edge of their seats with incredible plot twists and hilarious situations that could only come from the mind of a true genius.
Want even more Moore? Well then check out some of his other classics such as You Suck: A Love Story, Practical Demonkeeping, Lamb and his latest, Fool.
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