Practical Demonkeeping: A Comedy of Horrors

Every now and then, those of us who indulge in the most gruesome of the horror and science fiction genre must kick back, take a load off, and curl up with a well written and light hearted book that will allow us a chuckle or two.
This is the book for that moment. Relatively short (238 pages) and a very fast read, Moore's tale is not only captivating but will leave you chuckling in morbid humor. Travis O'Hearn is over ninety years old, but doesn't look a day over twenty five. This is because of his demon, Catch. Many years ago Travis unsuspectingly summoned the demon and became his Master, with one of the benefits being perpetual youth and an inability to die. Of course, the bad part is, Catch is not a nice demon, and Travis is stuck with him.
Catch likes to watch TV, read comic books, and ride on the hood of the car; but most of all he likes to eat, and people are his favorite food. All Travis wants to do is find a way to send Catch back to hell, but he doesn't have a clue as to how to go about it. The one person who holds the objects that may help him get rid of Catch is a young girl on a train, who Travis lost track seventy years ago without ever learning her name.
Which is what brings Travis and Catch to Pine Cove, a sleepy seaside tourist town. Here in Pine Cove, Moore introduces us to the townspeople; fleshing them out into fully developed personalities that you will either like or dislike, but will certainly not leave you with that dry feeling of a hastily sketched character. Moore's ability to bring all these different people to life is what makes this book such a fast and fun read; how he manages to bring these characters to life in only a few short paragraphs is the sign of a gifted writer.
There is Rachel, the benign witch; Howard, who runs the HP Café; Robert the drunken loser; Mavis, the gnarly tavern owner; Rivera the police sergeant; and a host of others that all add to the flavor of the story.
Topping it all off is the arrival of the King of the Djinn, Gian Hen Gian, who looks like a tiny wrinkled old man and spouts the most hilarious of insults to those who peeve him. The townspeople, Travis, Catch, and the Djinn all collide to bring us a most entertaining and humorous story. The ending is a flurry of activity, with fantasy and imagination that borders on silly but fits tightly in with the rest of the book.
Truly, 'Practical Demon Keeping' is a frivolous and light-hearted romp that is well worth the money spent. Enjoy!

Christopher Moore will never be mistaken for a serious writer ... but that really doesn't matter. Practical Demonkeeping et al keep the reader engrossed in the story and the reader will often find themselves laughing out loud while reading [any] of mister Moore's works.
In Practical Demonkeeping the audience is introduced to the "lovely" fictional town of Pine Grove near Big Sur. This is the same location featured in another of Christopher Moore's books - The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove ... whose population is a bizarre mix of eccentrics and small-town-strange people.
If you have never read anything by mr. Moore ... I would recommend this as a good place to start.
This novel will keep you laughing page after page ... keeping you completely engrossed in the story. Definitly a worthwhite read

In this fantastic debut, Moore creates a group of hilarious characters, including the unlikely duo Travis and Catch. Travis is a svelte looking 100-year-old man and Catch is his invisible demon companion who can only be seen by others when he is eating. When the two arrive in the seaside town of Pine Cove, a local man known as The Breeze becomes Catch's first meal. Moore introduces you to the other bizarre inhabitants of Pine Cove who all become involved in trying to take control of Catch or send him back to the Netherworld. The only thing you know for sure is that none of their lives will ever be the same. Christopher Moore has secured his place among my favorite authors and I cannot wait to read more of his zany adventures.

Every year around Hallowe'en, I look for a book that deals with the darker side of occult phenomena. This year, I didn't want to give myself a major case of the creeps...but I still wanted something which touched on that area.
'Practical Demonkeeping' was just the book for me.
The story deals primarily with Catch -- the demon -- and Travis -- Catch's deceptively young keeper. Catch and Travis -- in the midst of an interesting love-hate relationship (Travis hates Catch and Catch loves to be hated) -- arrive in the tourist town of Pine Cove where significant mayhem ensues! It is all related in an enjoyable manner. And the various occupants of the town are portrayed deftly without mean-spiritedness.
The author, Christopher Moore writes with the same type of wit which admirers of Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins will appreciate. And, this novel -- his debut -- is admirable for giving us a wide variety of characters, dealing humorously with their particular quirks, and engineering a clever plot in which their paths cross. Although the ending seems a bit rushed, I enjoyed just about every aspect of this novel. I won't give anything away. But, in the novel's last chapters, I would have enjoyed a more complete depiction of the characters' reactions. Not because I expect every detail to be spelled out...but because so many unique, interesting and amusing characters are involved at this point. It would have required significant authorial skill to relate all of that without bogging down the narrative but I think Moore could have managed it.
Without being macabre or morbid, this novel gives plenty of surprises. There are a few scenes which provoke a squirm or two but Moore never indulges in excessive depictions of violence or gore.
This kind of book works by keeping us intrigued about what will happen next -- not by dragging us deep down into depictions of cruelty and savageness.

Pine Cove, California is a strange place, full of strange people with a whole slew of problems without the seemingly young man and his demon, Catch, entering the picture. In this book, we are introduced to a host of characters that defy proper description. You need to read the book to truly grasps the absurdity and humor.

Catch is truly the star. This is a demon full of personality. The scene with the hotel clerk is probably one of the funniest I have ever read, and I will forever associate "magic fingers" with this crazy scene. Despite his being a completely evil being, the reader has no choice but to fall in love with this Cookie Monster loving beast.

If you want to laugh, Moore is the author for you, and "Practical Demonkeeping" is a book you will read over and over again.

For ninety-year-old Travis O'Hearn, who doesn't look a day over twenty-five, acting as the master of the snake-skinned demon Catch for the better part of the 20th century has been problematic. Granted, the position has its perquisites--immortality and the potential for world domination and so on--but on the other hand there is the difficult issue of the anthropophagous beast's appetite. Travis, unwilling demonkeeper and good guy that he is, has tried to limit Catch's diet over the years to drug dealers and other of life's non-innocents. But the situation is less than ideal, and Travis is eager to sever his relationship with Catch.

The solution to Travis's dilemma may lie in Pine Cove, California, a tourist town populated by intriguing characters like Howard Phillips, owner of H.P.'s Cafe, who believes that his daily specials may be the only thing keeping the world from subjugation to a pre-human race. (Howard insists that his waitresses describe the specials in memorized passages of overwrought prose. Ham and eggs is "a fiendishly toothsome amalgamation of scrumptious ingredients so delicious that the mere description of the palatable gestalt could drive one mad.") Also arrived in Pine Cove is Gian Hen Gian, a rumpled little demon hunter who curses in blue swirls and hankers after table salt, and who once worked construction on King Solomon's temple.

Christopher Moore is a witty and imaginative writer, and Practical Demonkeeping, Moore's first book, is a fun read. Moore's oeuvre should appeal to the Hitchhiker crowd and Tom Robbins fans.

Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece

"Practical Demonkeeping" is a story of a man, his demon, and the small California town they stumble upon one afternoon.
The story is certainly interesting, but it is unnecessarily convoluted. I couldn't help but think, while reading this novel, that there are enough interesting characters and subplots to make at least a second book. With some judicious editing, this would be a much better story. As it stands now, it is readable but not engrossing. As it was Moore's debut novel, I hope that his writing style is tighter in subsequent novels.
This didn't put me off of reading more of Moore's novels, but it doesn't have me rushing out to buy them either.

I like Christopher Moore. He has a wacky, demented view of the world, which ought to be obvious from this work's title. Don't expect great literature, or philosophical insights, but if you suspend disbelief, this is a very entertaining read, fast paced and humorous.

This is another zany, fun book from Christopher Moore; it is the 2nd novel I've read of his, the first being Coyote Blue. Practical Demonkeeping was neither as funny, nor as thoughtful as Coyote Blue, but was unusual enough, and had good enough characterizations to make this an easy, quick, and fun read. The setting of Pine City in CA provides plenty of characters for Moore to establish, but the story of the demon and his keeper is a bit too involved, and perhaps not grounded sufficiently to make this a four or five star book. Even so, it was fun to read.

This is the second Christopher Moore book I have read. The first was Lamb, which came out about ten years after this one and I think is a far better book. This is still really enjoyable though. I don't usually care for fantasy, mysterious type books, but Moore has a great sense of humour and this book moves at a real pace. My main dislike about it was that it was unnecessarily complicated. A lot of characters and a lot of details to keep track of (who has what power, over whom, how it can be removed, etc etc). I also agree with other reviewers that it was wrapped a little too quickly and easily without a big climax. Inventing hidden plotlines or last-minute secret powers is sort of an easy way out, no? But I recommend this book nonetheless. Or check out Lamb first.