What was a surprise, and sort of tough, was that I spent almost four hundred pages in A Dirty Job getting this whole mythology up in the air, and establishing it, and with this one, it was all already going. The Rumpus: Secondhand Souls is a sequel to A Dirty Job, which came out in 2006, so what was it like kind of stepping back into this world after so long away?Ĭhristopher Moore: Well, the world was fun, I always liked the characters and the reason I did another one was a lot of readers really liked the characters, too, and they wanted to see more of them. If it sounds complicated, it is, but Moore layers it all with sharp wit, genuine despair, absurdist humor, and a deep, abiding love for San Francisco. And he’s fighting off the rising forces of the underworld (the Morrigan) that have come to destroy San Francisco. He’s also making time to spend with his new Buddhist nun girlfriend who has created her own army of en-souled creatures made of spare animal parts (the Squirrel People).
He’s also trying to raise his daughter, Sophie, singlehandedly, a task made more complicated when he discovers she is the Illuminatus (the Great Big Death). Moore’s latest book is Secondhand Souls, a sequel to A Dirty Job, which centers around Charlie Asher, a self-described “beta male” and all-around nice guy who has been chosen as a Death Merchant-someone who collects people’s souls attached to significant objects they made or owned after they die and sells those “soul objects” to keep the circle of life going.
When I spoke to him, that warmth and humor made it feel as though I was catching up with an old friend instead of an author I’ve idolized since I was fifteen. In the midst of all the shenanigans, it often surprises first-time Moore readers to discover that his novels tackle the meaning of death, grief, faith, love, and art with a deft sleight-of-hand that would make some of his more “literary” contemporaries envious. Moore’s brand of zaniness is like Looney Tunes come to life, if Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were slacker vampires, or the best friend of Jesus Christ, or the randy fool from King Lear (all characters from Moore’s oeuvre in the last twenty-three years).
Usually this is due to the fact that I am laughing at the book. I have been asked “What are you reading?” most often when I have a Christopher Moore book in my hand.
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