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A Dirty Job (Hardcover)

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A Dirty Job (Hardcover)
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Product Details:

Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0060590270
ISBN-13: 9780060590277
Sku: 31248212
Publish Date: 3/21/2006
Dimensions:  (in Inches) 9.5H x 6.5L x 1T
Pages:  387
Age Range:  NA
See more in Humorous
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Charlie Asher walked the earth like an ant walks on the surface of water, as if the slightest misstep might send him plummeting through the surface to be sucked to the depths below. (from the first line)
From the Publisher:
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.

About the Author:
Christopher Moore is the author of eight previous novels: The Stupidest Angel, Fluke, Lamb, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Bloodsucking Fiends, Coyote Blue, and Practical Demonkeeping. He divides his time between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Annotation:
This darkly wacky take on the Grim Reaper from the author of BLOODSUCKING FIENDS features cameo appearances from several characters of that previous novel. Recent widower Charlie Asher, a sweet but somewhat wimpy worrywart, learns that he has been chosen to become a Death Merchant, one of many responsible for recovering the object from a dead person that holds that person's soul and passing that soul vessel on to another, living person. The job maintains a cosmic balance that prevents the forces of darkness from rising up and taking over the world. Unfortunately, someone (possibly Charlie) has already upset that balance.
Author Bio
Christopher Moore
Christopher Moore--the author of PRACTICAL DEMONKEEPING, BLOODSUCKING FIENDS, ISLAND OF THE SEQUINED LOVE NUN, and LAMB, among other novels--is often referred to as a "cult" writer, presumably because his books feature absurdist subjects and plots. (LAMB, for example, is a revisionist chronicle of the life of Jesus--as told by his friend Biff--and BLOODSUCKING FIENDS is a vampire tale that manages to involve frozen-turkey bowling.) Moore's book frequently land on the bestseller lists, however, making the "cult" label largely inaccurate. "I'm just working on getting a really giant cult," he once quipped to an interviewer. "We're saving up for a compound." The son of a highway patrolman and a department-store clerk, Moore was born and raised in Ohio. He majored in anthropology at Ohio State University before moving to California to study at the Brooks Institute of Photography. He supported himself with a variety of jobs, including roofer, grocery-store cashier, motel clerk, and factory worker. "Then all of a sudden, I was thirty," he has said. "I was supposed to be famous by the time I was thirty, right? Well, I wasn't. I was a waiter. . . . So I thought I better write a book." Inspired by the humor Douglas Adams had brought to science fiction with THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, Moore took a similar approach to the horror genre. The result was PRACTICAL DEMONKEEPING, which features a people-eating demon who terrorizes a small California town. Published in 1992, it was quickly optioned by Disney, and while he reportedly received a six-figure advance, a film version has not yet materialized. Moore is widely considered to be friendly and approachable, and his readings consistently draw large, enthusiastic crowds.

Praise

"[O]ne of the antic Moore's funniest capers yet." 02/01/2006

"[A] wonderful, whacked-out yarn....If it sounds over the top, that's because it is--but Moore's enthusiasm and skill make it convincing, and his affection for the cast of weirdos gives the book an unexpected poignancy." 02/20/2006

Product Attributes
Product attributeBook Format:   Hardcover
Product attributeNumber of Pages:   0387
Product attributePublisher:   William Morrow & Company
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