I picked up A Personal Demon, by David Bischoff, Rich Brown and Linda Richardson, at my local bookstore shortly after it was published in 1985.

Of the three authors listed, I was familiar only with Bischoff; I was lured, no doubt, by the lurid cover, which shows the eponymous demon -- attired only in long red hair, goat legs and a few wisps of ether -- perched on a chair above her nebbish summoner. I was a teenager, after all, and probably single, so the cover was an effective marketing tool.

I remember reading it then, and I recall that I liked it. Since then, it has sat on various bookshelves, moving with me several times, until it caught my attention last week while reorganizing my library. I found I couldn't remember any details of the plot, nor why exactly I enjoyed it. So I decided to read it again. It's a quick read, a paperback of around 250 pages, taking all of two or three days.

The story begins with a drunk New England college professor of medieval literature who decides to entertain his guests at a dull faculty party by summoning a demon. Now, it turns out that every failed summoning over the centuries has led to nearly all of Hell's fallen angels being banished from the mortal plane for all eternity, meaning they can't be summoned again. By odd chance, Willis Baxter comes up with the name of an obscure half-demon, Anathae, who just happens to be the last available demon in Hell. His incantation works, and the party is suddenly crashed by a beautiful, naked, very young-looking redhead with goat legs and tiny horns.

Hijinks ensue. Lessons are taught, and learned. Vengeance is had. A long, unhappy relationship is ended. Oh, and Willis and Anathae have a lot of sex.

And yet, there are missteps. For instance, the narrative is punctuated with the sort of asides directed at the audience -- "Now, dear reader, as painful as it might be, before we exit this chapter let us consider..." -- that I usually find quite tiresome. In this case, however ... yeah, it's still an affectation I don't much enjoy. There are better ways to tell a story.

The book is without a doubt misogynistic -- of a sort that was very prevalent in 1980s books and movies but is much less acceptable today -- but it does have some saving graces. The half-demon heroine is not just a pretty face and body; she actually gets some character development, and she handles men who overreach with satisfactory consequences. Then again, there's a female character who is described quite often in terms of her unpleasant looks and her personality flaws; when circumstances shift her into the knockout column, she suddenly has more value and her personality no longer seems to matter quite as much.

Also, for all that the half-demon seductress is some 4,000 years old, the authors repeatedly describe her as looking "not more than 16," usually just before describing her breasts or other features in Penthouse Forum detail. Call me old, or old-fashioned (or, better yet, make me an old-fashioned!), but that made me uncomfortable every time it came up. Couldn't she at least have looked 21? Or even 18?

To his credit, 37-year-old Willis begins to feel uncomfortable with the apparent age difference late in the book. And a nosy neighbor goes so far to report what she perceives as an inappropriate relationship to social services. And, eventually, that issue will be addressed to some degree.

And yet, I won't lie, I enjoyed A Personal Demon despite the fact that it aged, in many ways, quite badly. Anathae is a very likable demon, more prone to mischief rather than evil, and Willis -- well, he eventually becomes much more likable than he was at the start, although he is dogged throughout the book with annoying traits including unchecked alcoholism, a bad temper sparked by insecurities, unnecessary jealousy and, yes, even impotence. In fact, one of the things I like about the story is that, by the end, Willis becomes a better person. A rival professor who was gunning for his job becomes a better person. A jilted girlfriend seeking petty revenge becomes a better person. Anathae becomes a better half-demon. And a grossly sexist politician becomes ... a pig.

At the book's midpoint, the tone of the book changes abruptly -- enough that I wondered if it was originally intended to be two books. Suddenly, Willis and Ana are the intrepid crusaders in a demon-fueled parody of Reefer Madness (in a sequence that is entertaining, although ends somewhat abruptly and a little too conveniently), then they are at odds with a fraudulent pastor looking to score a few bucks and a lunk-headed student who misinterprets an instruction to "exorcise" the professor's demon with "knock the professor unconscious, kidnap him and, once he wakes up, force him to do deep knee bends with a bag over his head."

It turns out (as is revealed in the afterword) that the plot of A Personal Demon first found life as a series of short stories published in Fantastic magazine in the mid- to late 1970s, under the pseudonym Michael F.X. Milhaus. Perhaps a little more effort was needed to blend them seamlessly into a single novel. Certainly the earlier portions are much stronger than the later.

I enjoyed re-reading the book, although probably not as much as I did 40 years ago. And, let's be honest, I probably won't read it again.