A Dirty Job

By: Christopher Moore

Narrated by: Fisher Stevens

Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2006 Christopher Moore (P)2006 HarperCollinsPublishers

Critic reviews

• 2006 Quill Award Nominee

"Moore's enthusiasm and skill make it convincing, and his affection for the cast of weirdos gives the book an unexpected poignancy." (Publishers Weekly)

Utterly hilarious!!! I have never laughed so much!

I don't think I've ever listened/read a book where I laughed this much!! Definitely worth reading!

Pauses. And sentences that. Don't make sense.

How could the performance have been better?

The reader needs to understand why commas exist and how complex sentences and usually spoken. The pauses added where they don't belong and lack of concluding inflection made this a fairly miserable listening experience.

Beta, beta, beta male, drop that dead horse.

Honestly not great, but not bad, pretty much Liked everything except the excessive beating of the "beta male" horse. We get it. 1 explanation is plenty. Why does it almost feel like EVERY SINGLE ONE of Christopher Moores books drive that point over and over? I agree not every book written has to be about machismo, and interesting stuff happens to guys of more than 1 flavor. How about we stop putting all guys into only two categories, and broaden ones mind. Until then, just drop it already. Repeating "beta male" over and over does nothing to enhance the book, just turns me away. AND WTF WITH THAT MUSIC!! UNBEARABLE! !!

FUNNY!

What did you love best about A Dirty Job?

He had me at the scene in the delivery room "Charlie fluffed her pillow, checked her water pitcher, kissed her forehead, kissed the baby's head, fluffed the baby...." I was cooking one minute and laughing out loud the next.Such a fun book.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Charlie, so ridiculously neurotic but so sweet.

What about Fisher Stevens’s performance did you like?

Flawless, now one of my fav. narrators.

a new favorite

Christopher Moore is my new favorite author. A Dirty Job is one of the funniest books I've read in years, but it's also insightful. The author manages to inject the book with a sense of humanity along with his finely tuned sense of irony. I only wish Audible carried more of his books in their recorded collection!

Loved It

What made the experience of listening to A Dirty Job the most enjoyable?

Laugh out loud funny

Who was your favorite character and why?

Charlie, he's so innocent he's a riot

Have you listened to any of Fisher Stevens’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

first time

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Laugh out loud funny

Any additional comments?

I will listen to this again and again! I love it!

Great Surprise - Funny, Intriguing, Suspense

Different than my usual (Connelly, Child, etc.) I almost did not get it. Sooo glad I did. Great fun, laughed out loud repeatedly, kept my interest all the way through. Once I got a little bored, but just as soon as I realized I was bored, something happened that perked me up again. Highly, highly recommended.

LOL Funny

I really loved this book. It's hilariously funny. Fisher Stevens is a very good narrator. Only thing I didn't like was the music between chapters...weird.

Darkly hysterical

What a great book! Charlie, an unlikely hero and unwitting saviour of the world, is the kind of guy you usually ignore. His job as a second-hand junk merchant dovetails nicely with his unasked for avocation as a death merchant.

Set realistically in San Francisco, this book is just flat out funny. I've always suspected there were demons in the Trans Bay BART tunnel, and this book just confirms it.

The first few chapters were a little slow, but stick with it. They introduce the characters and set the scene for a great story.

Appeals to the teenage boy in me.

A story of an unlikely hero that reads like a comic book. Entertaining, however not very clever or deep. It's an adventure story that takes pride in its city. It has a steady arc up and does well to build energy in the final chapters. If your a fan of fun books, slight perversions, or dark comedies, then this would be a good choice. Honestly, I wanted it to be edgier and more horrific, but enjoyed the last quarter of the book. I would recommend to gothics, teenage boys, anyone with an immature sense of humor ;)