Review: A Dirty Job
I finished A Dirty Job : A Novel by Christopther Moore the other day.
Now, if you’ve never read anything by Christopher Moore, you simply must. I reccomend starting with Practical Demon Keeping. It was his earliest work, if I recall correctly, and what I started reading. I do not reccomend this lightly. There are tonnes of “in jokes” that refer back to his earlier writing that yo won’t get if you start with A Dirty Job. Other than that, though, I cannot say enough about how wonderful this book is. Truly, as he gets older, Moore’s writing gets better and better.
The book opens with the birth of Sophie Asher, an event that sends her father, Charlie, into quite a state. This emotional whirlwind is not improved by his wife’s death or the mysterious stranger in the lime-green suit that only Charlie can see hovering over his wife’s death bed. What’s more, having a somewhat self-involved, slightly closeted lesbian sister who meddles a bit too much probably didn’t improve things much for poor Charlie, either. Certainly, getting his copy of the Great Big Book of Death redirected out of his mail by an employee didn’t help one bit, either. Turns out, old Charlie is a Death Merchant and, according to Minty Fresh, the man in the lime-green suit, his “job” is to collect soul containers from the recently deceased and pass them on to their new homes, thus aiding the transmigration of souls and holding back the forces of darkness.
Believe it or not, this book is a relatively light-hearted comedic romp through a strange and dark San Francisco that touches on the topics of death, life and everything inbetween along the way. As in one of his earlier books, Lamb, Moore handles some delicate ideas surrounding spirituality with grace and skill and wit. In spite of being about a rather heavy and potentially “dark” subject (eg. Death), Moore manages to spin a fun yarn filled with magic, mystery and delight.
In short, as with all of his work that I’ve read, I highly reccomend A Dirty Job : A Novel by Christopther Moore. It’s brilliant work and a fun, breezy read that will have you looking for ways to make more time to read. One warning, though, once you start reading Moore, you’ll want to read more.
Oh, I also read the inspirational book A Better Way to Live : Og Mandino’s Own Personal Story of Success Featuring 17 Rules to Live By, which was a fairly good, if short read. Given a choice, go with the Moore books.
Currently, I’m reading Angels & Demons because, well, because I have it, and it was reccomended to me by several people. Besides, all this nice weather demands fiction that’s fun, not non-fiction that’s going to teach me something.
