Lornographic Material

I've heard many good things about Christopher Moore, but mostly I've heard that I'd love his sense of humor. In life, I take two things seriously: The health and security of my family. Everything else is fair game. If you can riff on religion, politics, sex and the overall human condition, in a thought-provoking, sarcastic manner, you will find a friend in me. For this reason, I would love to just sit down and have a conversation with Moore. I'm sure we'd laugh ourselves stupid.

The Characters: A pothead constable, an aging b-movie actress, a psychiatrist, a biologist, a blues man, a painter, a pharmacist with a sexual preference for sea life and a barkeep that's more metal and silicone than human, make up the cast of The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. And those are just the good guys. Somehow, Moore makes each of these people flesh and blood real. I even felt bad for the fish-f***ing druggist. I love well drawn characters, no matter how outlandish, and Moore delivers by the bucket-load.

Now, I didn't read the synopsis of this book because someone warned me that Harper (Moore's publisher) tends to ruin some of the funnier moments with their blurbs, so I went into this book blind, aside from the title of course. When Steve the Sea Beast finds his first lover around page 60, I almost lost my mind laughing. Which brings me to the synopsis. Harper actually covers that scene in the blurb, so I was very happy I skipped the spoiler. 

There's far too much going on in this book to cover even a quarter of it here, but I will say Moore is now one of my favorite authors. One of the other warnings I was given before reading this book was that The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove was his most lackluster work to date, so if I enjoyed this book, I'd love his other stuff. We'll see about that. All I know is that I've never laughed so hard while reading. Ever. Period. The last forty pages of this novel had my sides hurting. 

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is a far-fetched, foul-mouthed, filthy-minded pedestrian, walking the streets of the Land of Make Believe. If you like your humor lewd and crude, but interlaced with witty social commentary, you will adore Christopher Moore.