If you think the horror genre is limited to Halloween, think again! In The Stupidest Angel, Christopher Moore introduces horror to Christmas, and a hilarious story is born of the tryst. Raziel, an angel, granted he’s a rather stupid angel, comes to the town of Pine Cove, California to answer the wish of one child. None of the dysfunctional residents of the town, except the craziest resident, recognizes him as an angel. They think he’s a pervert or a robot on a mission of destruction. What I love about Pine Cove’s residents, crazy and hilarious as they all are, they seem so real with all of their little quirks making them come alive.
Beyond brilliant characters though and absolute hilarity, what I love the most is the active role that the weather takes in the story. An El Niño year is not just mentioned to give setting. It’s not just a pun both in that there’s an El Niño, and the angel is here to grant the wish of a boy child. No, the weather is almost like another character in the book helping to escalate the plot towards conclusion. However, the characters in the book, just like people in real life all seem to suffer from weather amnesia and completely ignore the forecasts of a major storm. “Winter denial – Theo did it, most Californians did it – they assumed that because the weather was nice most of the time, it would be nice all of the time…” Of course, denying the weather makes it no less real, and Theo and the rest of the characters, even the dead, do so at their own peril.
