[[quoteright:332:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/demonology_5993.jpg]]

A man named Travis summons up a demon when he's 19 and is unable to send it back to where it came from. As a consequence [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld he hasn't aged a day since 1919]]. Catch, the demon, can't be banished because Travis lost the incantations and Travis has to deal with all the problems that demonkeeping entails. In the present day, a [[OurGeniesAreDifferent Djinn]] is trying to get ahold of Catch, which causes even more problems on top of Travis' current ones.

The first published novel written by ComicLiterature writer Creator/ChristopherMoore

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!! This novel provides examples of:

* TheAllegedCar: Travis' Impala. A large part of the car's utter shittiness is due to Travis himself. He literally drives it into a ditch just to annoy Catch.
* AndIMustScream: Catch is punished by being chained to a rock and having an eagle fly down and eat his liver every day. Brine lampshades the fact that it sounds a lot like Prometheus's punishment. Gian Hen Gian {{Hand Wave}}s this by saying that the "Greeks were thieves, no better than Solomon".
* AssholeVictim: Catch can't always be stopped from eating people, so Travis naturally tries to get him to eat pimps and drug dealers rather than, say, babies and sweet old ladies.
* CallingYourShots: Travis cheats at pool by having his invisible demon, Catch, move the balls where he calls them. Usually.
-->'''Travis:''' "I said ''corner'' pocket!!!"
-->'''Local pool hustler:''' "I heard you, stranger. Looks like you put a bit too much English on it.''
* CrossoverCosmology: Gian Hen Gian, the Djinn, has a backstory that includes aspects from Greek, Arabian and Christian mythology.
* CurseOfTheAncients: "By Aladdin's lamplit scrotum, man!"
* DecoyProtagonist: The first chapter is told from the viewpoint of a man called The Breeze. Then Catch eats him.
* {{Epigraph}}: There's one at the beginning of the novel quoting ''Literature/TheRimeOfTheAncientMariner''.
* FallenAngel: Demons were formerly angels; this includes Catch.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Catch and Gian Hen Gian. Gian believed that he was seeing an actual genie the first time he is exposed to a movie.
%%* ForTheEvulz: Catch.
* FourLinesAllWaiting: The book is notorious for its rather convoluted plot.
* GenieInABottle: Gian Hen Gian was trapped in Solomon's jar for centuries before being fished out of the sea.
* HeWhoMustNotBeNamed: Speaking Travis' name has no actual consequences, but those who he's associated with tend to call him ''the dark one''.
* HumansAreFlawed: Humans are implied to have been created to piss off {{Satan}} and the other fallen angels... by the sheer inferiority and absurdity.
* InvisibleToNormals: Catch, under most circumstances.
* ItGetsEasier: Travis hates that Catch has to continually eat people, but he gets used to it.
%%* KidWithTheLeash: Travis.
* JerkassGod: Most of the things that {{God}} does are for the sole purpose of pissing off various people.
** Down to ''creating the human race'' as a big 'ol TakeThat at both {{Satan}} and the [[OurGeniesAreDifferent Djinn]].
-->'''Gian Hen Gian''': [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Jehovah is infinite in his snottiness.]]
%%* MacGuffin: The Seal of Solomon.
* MakeItLookLikeAnAccident: Catch got away with killing a lot of Solomon's slaves by dropping heavy things on them and pretending it was an accident.
* TheMasquerade: Catch purposefully does things that might expose TheMasquerade so that he would be allowed to [[ForTheEvulz kill the witnesses]].
%%* NeverLearnedToRead: Catch
* NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead: When learning of the death of "the town's evil developer" Milo Tobin, the customers of Augustus Brine's store struggle to think of something nice to say about him. In the end, they have to settle for the fact that [[DamnedByFaintPraise he kept his Chrystler really clean.]]
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: Demons are all [[FallenAngel fallen angels]]. Catch, in particular, is short and squat, has scaly skin, cat eyes, and a forked tongue. He is [[NighInvulnerability practically indestructible]] can be affected by drugs but not poison and needs to [[IAmAHumanitarian eat people every couple of days or he gets cranky]]. When eating he triples in size and stops being InvisibleToNormals. Catch also comes with the perk of granting eternal youth.
* OurGeniesAreDifferent: Gian Hen Gian appears as an Arabic man that can only speak Arabic, but is understood by everyone regardless of whether they know Arabic or not. He claims that Djinn are the first people, that they were [[RealityWarper reality warpers]]. whose powers made {{God}} jealous. They live in the netherworld.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Travis is almost a hundred years old, but he looks like he's 19. He hasn't aged a day since he summoned Catch.
%%* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Howard Phillips.
* ShoutOut:
** Catch is quite fond of making references to pop culture. In fact in his very first scene Catch says [[Film/TheExorcist "Your mother sucks cocks in hell" over and over while spinning his head around several times]].
** Howard Phillips' cafe, like his character, is an extended shout out to Creator/HPLovecraft
* TheSlacker: Catch, before he began to spend time on Earth.
%%* SummoningRitual
%%* SuperStrength: Catch.

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