The remainder of the novel covers five years of Charlie's life, during which time he intermittently raises Sophie as a single dad, performs his duties as a Death Merchant and attempts to thwart a trio of 'sewer-dwelling harpies' out to undermine all human existence. It is THEN that the narrative becomes hilariously bizarre. While still adapting to his new life as a father, he loses Rachel to a 'cerebral thromboembolism.' Matters are complicated when Charlie sees Minty Fresh, a used-music dealer who moonlights as a 'Death Merchant,' collect Rachel's 'soul vessel.' And now Charlie, thanks to his ability to see Fresh snapping up his wife's soul in her favorite CD, has been tapped for the same job. When Rachel delivers their first child, Sophie, Charlie's life seems complete.for a moment. What sustains him is his wife, Rachel, who he can hardly believe ever consented to be his partner. Protagonist Charlie Asher, a 'Beta Male,' is a naturally cautious and timid soul, content with life as the proprietor of a thrift store. 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.Ī Quirky, Canny, Hilarious Spin on Death & Its Merchant Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too.

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. But see him Charlie does, and from here on out, things get really weird. 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. That is, until the day his daughter, Sophie, is born. And she, Rachel, is about to have their first child. He's married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. 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 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. A little hapless, somewhat neurotic, sort of a hypochondriac.

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