A Dirty Job
The death of the protagonist’s wife isn’t a conventional opening for most comic novels, but maybe that’s why there haven’t been a whole lot of decent comic novels written lately by people who weren’t named Christopher Moore.
A DIRTY JOB takes on the Big Sleep the same way Moore’s BLOODSUCKING FIENDS took on vampires and LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST’S CHILDHOOD PAL took on Jesus. As Charlie Asher’s wife dies after giving birth to a daughter, Charlie must confront a) single parenthood and b) being forced to collect souls as one of the Grim Reaper’s foot soldiers. Things are never that simple, though, and a huge battle with the forces of capital “e” Evil is in the offing.
Though appealing, the narrative destination is only part of the story, as is the case with any of Moore’s books. Jokes come in fast and often, hitting the mark nearly all of the time. Whether a small one-off gag or a punch line arriving after 50 pages of build-up, Moore delivers the best humor writing currently seeing print on the planet.
Outside of that, A DIRTY JOB demonstrates that, despite this being his ninth novel, Moore’s style hasn’t become tired or hackneyed. At this point of his career, with golden reviews in The New York Times and cherished front-of-the-store display space at Borders, he could probably get away with phoning it in. But he doesn’t, and that’s pretty groovy. –Ryun Patterson
[...] MONDAY >> 5.22.06 Ahhh, Monday. It was such an idyllic time. There was neither the coarseness or vulgarity of Wednesday nor the insouciant egotism of Thursday. These days nowadays can’t hold a candle to reviews such as my own look at Christopher Moore’s A DIRTY JOB, which in turn takes a look at the plight of Grim Reaper apprentices struggling with the day-to-day travails of single parenthood. Apparently, it’s not as easy as it sounds. [...]
[...] QUILL YOU PLEASE VOTE? Nominations for the 2nd annual Quills Awards were announced yesterday, honoring the best in books among 20 categories. Well, at least they say “best,” but Tyler Perry is nominated in the humor category for DON’T MAKE A BLACK WOMAN TAKE OFF HER EARRINGS. (Really? Were only five humor titles published last year?) The nominees are all over the board and appear to have been picked randomly, although they did have the good sense to nominate James Swanson’s MANHUNT in two categories, and it remains our favorite non-fiction title of the year (for damn good reasons, hoss). Other titles nominated that we’ve reviewed here include Stephen King’s CELL, Christopher Moore’s A DIRTY JOB and Raymond Khoury’s startlingly mediocre THE LAST TEMPLAR. So go vote now in their laborious one-category-at-a-time process before Sept. 30, at quillsvote.com. The awards ceremony will be televised on NBC stations Oct. 11, to even fewer viewers than the least-watched episode of JOEY. However, if we can get Elizabeth Kostova (a winner for last year’s THE HISTORIAN) to show up in a slightly more revealing dress than she did before, that could change. [...]