Practical Demonkeeping



Practical Demonkeeping: A Comedy of Horrors (1992) is the first novel by Christopher Moore.

Cover Copy
In Christopher Moores ingenious debut novel, we meet one of the most memorably mismatched pairs in the annals of literature. The good-looking one is one-hundred-year-old ex-seminarian and "roads" scholar Travis OHearn. The green one is Catch, a demon with a nasty habit of eating most of the people he meets. Behind the fake Tudor façade of Pine Cove, California, Catch sees a four-star buffet. Travis, on the other hand, thinks he sees a way of ridding himself of his toothy traveling companion. The winos, neo-pagans, and deadbeat Lotharios of Pine Cove, meanwhile, have other ideas. And none of them is quite prepared when all hell breaks loose.

Main Characters
Augustus "Gus" Brine

Catch, a demon

Gian hen Gian, King of the Djinn

Jenny Masterson

Robert Masterson

Rachel Henderson

Travis O'Hearn

Detective Sergeant Alphonso Rivera

Amanda Elliot

Minor or Recurring Characters
The Breeze

Billy Winston

Howard Phillips

Slick McCall

J. Effrom Elliot

Location(s)
Pine Cove San Junipero County King's Lake, NV
 * Brine's Bait, Tackle, and Fine Wines
 * Head of the Slug Saloon
 * H.P.'s Restaurant
 * U-Pick-Em Mushroom Farm/Sacred Caves
 * Nuked Whale
 * San Junipero County Sheriff's Department

Plot Synopsis
WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

Travis was born in 1900, yet he has not aged since 1916, because he accidentally called up a demon from hell named Catch as his servant, presumably forever. Ever since then, Travis has been trying to get rid of Catch, but is unable to do so because he has lost the repository of the necessary incantations. He traces their whereabouts to a fictional town called Pine Cove, along Big Sur coast, where he thinks the woman he gave them to may be residing. Interactions with the townspeople and with a djinn, who is pursuing Catch, create considerable complications.

Publication History
First published in January, 1992 by St. Martin's Press.