American Gods a Novel [Paperback]

neil gaiman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2001

Editorial Reviews Amazon.com's Best of 2001 American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days. Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow. More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 465 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York City (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965221547
• ISBN-13: 978-0965221542
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (893 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,296,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I make things up and write them down. Which takes us from comics (like SANDMAN) to novels (like ANANSI BOYS and AMERICAN GODS) to short stories (some are collected in SMOKE AND MIRRORS) and to occasionally movies (like Dave McKean's MIRRORMASK or the NEVERWHERE TV series, or my own short film A SHORT FILM ABOUT JOHN BOLTON).

In my spare time I read and sleep and eat and try to keep the blog at www.neilgaiman.com more or less up to date.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

206 of 232 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "This Is a Bad Place For Gods...", August 2, 2001

By 

Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: American Gods: A Novel (Hardcover)

Released from prison shortly after the accidental death of his wife, ex-con Shadow finds himself free, but bereft of all the things that gave his previous life meaning. As he bids his farewell to the fragments of that life, an eerie stranger named Mr. Wednesday offers him employment. Wednesday needs someone to act as aid, driver, errand boy, and, in case of Wednesday's death, someone to hold a vigil for him. Shadow consents and finds himself drawn unsuspectingly into a cryptic reality where myth and legend coexist with today's realities.

Mr. Wednesday, trickster and wise man, is on a quest. The old gods who came over to this country with each human incursion have weakened as their followers have dwindled and are now threatened with extinction by the modern gods of technology and marketing. Wednesday travels from deity to deity, rounding up help for what will be last battle. He engages ancient Russian gods, Norse legends, Egyptian deities, and countless others who have found their way to America in the past 10,000 or so years. Shadow never quite understands what his role is in all of this, but he experiences visions and dreams which promise that he is far more than Wednesday's factotum.

The plot is unendingly inventive as it treks its way across the country. From Chicago to Rhode Island, and Seattle to the magical town of Lakeside, Shadow's journey seems to follow the back roads of America. The people he meets are gritty, and the gods are even grittier. Gaiman creates believable characters with quick brush strokes and builds vivid landscapes that belie their mundane origins. Gaiman, recently moved to the U.S. has invited us along on his own quest to discover an America uniquely his own.

This is a novel that resonates at many levels, it is Shadow's initiation quest, Gaiman's search for the American identity, a revisionist Twilight of the Gods, and last, but not least a captivating piece of fiction. The gods that people this story came with people who found their way to this country from almost every time and place. Gaiman has put his finger on once of this country's greatest truths. Every person who ever lived here has roots from somewhere else. We have crossed oceans and land bridges, on foot, and by every other means of transportation. Our culture has been created whole cloth out of the character and beliefs of all those people. Gaiman has managed to capture a bit of that vision and put it on display for the reader.

After his superb work in "Neverwhere," "Stardust," and the Sandman graphic novels, Neil Gaimon has established himself a force to be reckoned with in the crossover horror/fantasy genre. Now with his new novel Gaiman establishes his mastery in a remarkable story of quest and transformation as he comes to terms with his own vision of America. "American Gods" defies classification and invites superlatives. This is one of 2001's must reads.

54 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Neil Strikes Again, June 20, 2001

By 

J. Dzwigalski "cyber junkie" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Gods: A Novel (Hardcover)

After waiting several years for Neil's new book, I hungrily devoured the 400+ page "American Gods" in just over two days. The story follows Shadow Moon, recently released from prison, as he comes to work for a man simply known as Wednesday. Wednesday is a peculiar old man with a frightening knowledge of Shadow's past and an amazing talent of swindling people who introduces Shadow to many fascinating characters, who it is later learned, are all transplanted Gods endeavoring to hold on to life all across America.

Gaiman explores the sacred power hidden in the kitschy roadside attractions doting the landscape of America's many back roads; their once glorious power waning as people worship more modern cultural icons and ideas. The sprawling story pits the forgotten gods America's immigrated citizens brought with them to the new land against the high-tech gods of modern living in a war for the very right to be worshipped. Shadow is pulled headfirst into the dispute and ends up playing a crucial role in the upcoming battle. The meanings of life and death, self-worth, spiritual beliefs, and redemption are all explored with Gaiman's witty intelligence.

Gaiman's ability to entwine multiple plot lines with clever cultural critiques while maintaining fantastic character descriptions and an engaging narrative solidifies the fantasy/horror author's place as one of the world's best storytellers. Much more than a magical tale of combating Gods, Gaiman paints a picture of a melting pot left too long to boil, and a country who worships the next big thing a bit too easily and with little consideration for it's ancestry.

Definitely worth buying, and undeniably worth reading (all though you might want to slow down a bit more than I did!). And while you're at it - check out "Stardust" and "Neverwhere", you won't be disappointed.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It doesn't get much better than this, July 4, 2001

By 

Jason N. Mical (Bellevue, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Gods: A Novel (Hardcover)

It's a rare author who weaves a perfect, creative narrative from the best of all possible materials, and a rare book that entertains, challenges, and entices from cover to cover with such a narrative. Neil Gaiman's "American Gods," the latest literary offering from the High Priest of the English Language's Temple of Original Stories, achieves exactly this for exactly that kind of writer. In "American Gods," the author of "Neverwhere" and the creator of the Sandman graphic novels fashions a story that fans will find distantly familiar, and new readers will lose themselves inside within a few pages.

The book opens with Shadow, the main character and an almost Shakespearian anti-hero, walking out of prison to learn that his wife has died. On the plane ride home, he meets an enigmatic con-man named Wednesday who offers Shadow a job - and a second chance at life. With little else to do except practice coin tricks he learned in prison, Shadow reluctantly accepts and the two begin a wintery, midwestern odyssey gathering other characters together in an attempt to weather an upcoming storm. The book follow's Shadow's travels as he discovers who he's working for, what's going on, and more about himself than he would ever want to know.

The journey involves dreams, altered realities, other dimensions, strange encounters, and myths and folklore from every non-American culture on the planet. As with other Gaiman work, there is a certain amount of fun to figuring out which fantastic character Shadow is talking to - and to figuring out where the twisting plot leads next.

Gaiman's premise - that gods are physically created by belief and made manifest - should be familiar to fans of his graphic novels, short stories, and other work. It is this kind of creativity that sets Gaiman apart from other authors today; his stories are as timeless as the mythologies that span cultures across the world, and yet they are original and fresh enough to engage the reader on a primal and intellectual level. After reading books like "American Gods" and Gaiman's other works, one imagines he would be utterly comfortable as a bard or storyteller, weaving tales of heros around the fireplace late at night to ward off the darkness and cold outside.

"American Gods" is just as epic as these old stories, and as engaging as a new novel should be. Gaiman is one of the most important and welcome voices in English-language literature today, although intellectual praise shouldn't put off the reader searching for a good story, because that's exactly what one will find between these covers. "American Gods" is a journey of delights that I can do nothing but recommend to any reader.