387 pages
English language
Published Sept. 4, 2006 by William Morrow.
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 …
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.
I got about 10 pages in. It was kinda funny, but the phrase “beta-male” had appeared on about every other page, so I asked my reader and it told me “beta-male” appeared 100s of times in the book. That was it for me.
Christopher Moore is very good at bridging the gap between a serious story and an absurd farce, and out of all of his books that I've read so far, this one is probably the best at mixing the humor with the drama.
The story is about Charlie Asher, a second-hand store operator who finds himself as a "minor death": not able to kill people at their appointed time, but responsible for caring for their soul until it can find a new home. Unfortunately, Charlie obtained this role the day his daughter was born, and the day his wife died. As a new, single father who must bear the responsibilities of a "Death Merchant", Charlie has a lot on his plate.
What makes this book different from the other Moore books I've read is that it deals with death both as a serious subject (Charlie quickly obtains a deep respect for …
Christopher Moore is very good at bridging the gap between a serious story and an absurd farce, and out of all of his books that I've read so far, this one is probably the best at mixing the humor with the drama.
The story is about Charlie Asher, a second-hand store operator who finds himself as a "minor death": not able to kill people at their appointed time, but responsible for caring for their soul until it can find a new home. Unfortunately, Charlie obtained this role the day his daughter was born, and the day his wife died. As a new, single father who must bear the responsibilities of a "Death Merchant", Charlie has a lot on his plate.
What makes this book different from the other Moore books I've read is that it deals with death both as a serious subject (Charlie quickly obtains a deep respect for palliative care workers), a source of humor (the other Death Merchants are a really quirky bunch, as are the people in Charlie's normal orbit), and also with a heavy helping of macabre. There were times I thought I was reading a sillier version of a Stephen King or Clive Barker novel, but the proximity of the truly dark content to the outright absurd is really a fire that keeps the engine running. It never becomes over the top, one way or the other, and turns from one to the other at just the right times.
One key concept that I wanted to mention was Charlie's role as a "Beta Male", because it's really central to the character, and is amazingly spot on. Unlike the more testosterone, successful Alpha Males, Beta Males survive by weighing options and knowing the better part of valor. Charlie is a very unlikely hero, an unlikely choice to deal in death, but he's made better by this responsibility as a Death Merchant, and as a single father.
This book didn't make me laugh out loud like Lamb, but it felt very well constructed and fantastically entertaining.
A nobody becomes, one day, a "death merchant".
I've found a new favourite author, someone who makes me laugh as much as Terry Pratchett, Tom Robbins, or Douglas Adams yet wears his learning very lightly.
I never felt that I was being lectured at, but saw underneath the hip cynicism a sacred respect for the dying.
Moore gives Death his quirky humor treatment, following the struggles of newly-chosen "Death Merchant", Charlie Asher. Moore has an amazing ability of making lovable characters that are just odd enough to be believable.
The only disappointing thing in the book was the Luminatus - I thought it was completely obvious, but all the characters were oblivious up until the end.
I saw Christopher Moore read from this book at Wordstock. The protagonist finds himself responsible for collecting souls. The book's tenderness and focus on mortality is inspired by the author's personal experience caring for a dying relative. Mind you, it's still a Christopher Moore book, with double helpings of humor and suspense.
