A Dirty Job: A Novel

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy—a quintessential Beta Male—with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.

It's a dirty job, being a grim reaper. But, hey! Somebody's gotta do it.

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.

It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's gotta do it.

“Dizzyingly inventive and hypnotically engaging, A DIRTY JOB is . . . like no other book I’ve ever read.” - Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Son of a Witch

“#%&@*!—It’s A Dirty Job, but Moore has to do it, delivering another bent cocktail of his designer-brand insanity—and giving the current generation its own Vonnegut, Robbins, and Swift rolled into one. Amen.” - Tim Dorsey, author of The Big Bamboo

“[Moore] is superb in this mock epic of death and love. Smart people will be enormously amused.” - Library Journal (starred review)

“Dizzyingly inventive and hypnotically engaging, A Dirty Job is by turns hysterical, severely sad, always brisk and lolloping, and like no other book I’ve ever read.” - Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Son of a Witch

“If there’s a funnier writer out there, step forward.” - Playboy

“Death, of course, is not usually a funny subject, but in the hands of Christopher Moore it sure is.” - Hartford Courant

“One of the antic Moore’s funniest capers yet.” - Kirkus Reviews

“[A] wonderful, whacked-out yarn.” - Publishers Weekly

“Hilarious yet poignant.” - Hartford Courant

“My top pick for laugh-out-loud reading . . . dark, dark, dark and funny, funny, funny.” - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

“Outlandishly funny.” - Syracuse Post-Standard

“[A DIRTY JOB] will keep a smile on your face long after you put it down.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Outstanding . . . The dialogue follows a zany illogic worthy of the Marx brothers.” - Washington Post Book World

“Makes you laugh in the face of death.” - Rocky Mountain News

“[A] wonderful, whacked-out yarn . . . Moore’s enthusiasm and skill make it convincing, and his affection for the cast of weirdos gives the book an unexpected poignancy.” - Publishers Weekly

“A bravura mix of the familiar and the hilariously original.” - Denver Post

“Moore’s signature tossed-off humor is in full effect, and it’s easy to care about his warm, lumpy, honest characters.” - Entertainment Weekly

“To keep a straight face while reading this book, one would have to be dead already ... Grade: A.” - Rocky Mountain News

“[Moore’s] most speculative, tripped-out and deeply felt book to date.” - The Oregonian (Portland)