Read for the 2010 TBR Lite Reading Challenge.
Christopher Moore’s books tend to feature a figurative cast of thousands of people with seemingly disparate lives, who collide into some sort of climax at the end of the book.
In Practical Demonkeeping, we have Travis, who accidentally summoned the demon Catch, and is traveling around the country trying to keep Catch from killing too many people, who finds his way to the small California town of Pine Cove. In Pine Cove, we find the Breeze, a stoner trying to make it big in the drug world; Robert, newly dumped by his wife; Jenny, the wife, trying to figure out life without Robert; Augustus Brine, the manager of the local find foods store; Rachel, leader of the local Pagan Vegan society, and a host of other people. Travis and Catch’s arrival in Pine Cove is not accidental, and touches off a whole series of events.
This was Moore’s first novel. I seem to have accidentally been working my way in a generally backward direction through his work, and the more I read, the more I realize I prefer his newer books. There’s an element of humor in the newer work that’s missing in the older, and Moore’s mad-cap, frenetic pacing needs that humor. I don’t want to say I hated this book, but I didn’t read it with nearly as much enjoyment as most of the other books of his I’ve read. I still have a few of the newer books left to read, and I suspect I’ll gravitate to them before finishing off the rest of his older works in my library.