American Gods: A Novel
by Neil Gaiman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Neil GaimanEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2003-09-01
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 624
Book Reviews of American Gods: A Novel
Book Review: Thank you, Mr Gaiman
Summary: 5 Stars
Neil Gaiman is British, even though he actually lives in the United States these days, which perhaps explains why the Amazon UK site has a solid list of reviews for this book, while the US site features none. It also probably explains why I could pick up this book at an airport store at Heathrow, while it is out of print in the States.
This is turn explains, why I am writing a review of the expanded version of the novel published in the UK in 2005 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Gods-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0755322819/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/202-9780075-5837400?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174969144&sr=8-3), not the American edition referenced here.
The book is a jewel. A flawless jewel at that. While the sheer scope is mindboggling, the depth of characters astonishing and the vibrancy of images captivating, it is the precision with which the individual storylines unravel only to come together in the end like a mesmerizing tapestry.
This is what a literary critic would say, anyway. As a reader, who was quite content with simply being taken on a journey, I only need say that I liked where I was taken and who I had for a guide.
Gaiman tells a story that makes you happy to be alive, and quite possibly (although not necessarily) in America.
Summary of American Gods: A Novel
After three years in prison, Shadow has done his time. But as the time until his release ticks away, he can feel a storm brewing. Two days before he gets out, his wife Laura dies in a mysterious car crash, in adulterous circumstances. Dazed, Shadow travels home, only to encounter the bizarre Mr Wednesday claiming to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America. Together they embark on a very strange journey across the States, along the way solving the murders which have occurred every winter in one small American town. But the storm is about to break...Disturbing, gripping and profoundly strange, Gaiman's epic novel sees him on the road to the heart of America. Includes extra material exclusive to Headline Review's editionAmerican 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.
Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. 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
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