“Practical Demonkeeping”, by Christopher Moore

Moore, Christopher. Practical Demonkeeping. New York: Avon Books, 1992. Print.

I borrowed this book from a friend upon leaving his house one night, facing a long subway ride home with no reading material.  I read the first chapter of this, then it languished in my borrowed books pile for months until I picked it up again.

It’s a reasonably funny book – I’m not surprised now that I look at the cover and see that the front quote is from Carl Hiaasen.  It reminds me of the style of Terry Pratchett, not that I’ve read a ton of his books.  It’s a fantasy novel set in modern time and place (in the US), about a guy who conjured up a demon 70 years ago and how things finally come to a head when he finds a woman he’s been searching for who can help him send the demon back to hell.  There are subplots about the members of the small town who end up mixed up in it, knowingly or not – of course there’s an undercover cop working on a drug bust, a cross-dresser who goes online (using a modem – scratch that about it being “modern time”), and various romantic entanglements.  I am most likely to remember the guy who owns the bait and wine shop, who is an unwilling hero if there ever was one – content to sit by the fire in his jewel of a cabin and drink a bottle of wine each night.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this, but it was a light read that was easy to put down.  LibraryThing recommends the authors Tom Robbins (not fantasy, but otherwise similar), Robert Rankin (very similar), Neil Gaiman (not usually funny), and Jasper Fforde to people who like the book.  I hadn’t made the Fforde connection, but I suppose his books are fantasy too.