Book Review - American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

I am nowhere near as familiar with Gaiman’s work as I should be, and this is my first shot at his adult fiction. I have to admit that, fifty pages in, I was fairly convinced that I wouldn’t like it, especially after talking to someone who only made it a bit further than that before giving up. As it turns out, it just took a while for me to get what Gaiman was trying to do with this book.

The book centers on Shadow, a hulking, pensive man who is fond of coin tricks and has just served a short prison stint for assault. Through what appears to be the cruel vagaries of fate, Shadow finds himself with nowhere to go and nobody waiting for him when he is released, except for an odd man named Wednesday, who just might be a down-on-his-luck god. The rest of the story is basically one long road trip across America’s heartland, punctuated by a jumbled pastiche of cameos by the ragged remnants of once-almighty deities, as Shadow works under Wednesday to rally an army against the supposedly imminent attack of the glittering, frantic, materialistic new gods of America.

This book starts out with a little preamble and lot of moroseness, and the otherworldly elements are kicked off by an oddly placed erotic chapter that gets extremely weird very quickly. It takes a bit of fortitude to process the first few chapters, and to accept that the plot largely consists of rising action once you get past them. Indeed, the climax is so literally anti-climactic that it will definitely be the last straw for any reader who is still on the fence at that point. Fortunately for me, I was wholly enjoying myself by the time I got to the end. American Gods is just like the Americana road trip that Shadow takes: an aimless journey across a landscape dotted with bizarre curiosities. Journeys like that have no real “point,” except to make one ponder the loneliness of decades-old tourist traps, and wonder at the power they still have to make a traveler stop and stare.

I read the tenth anniversary edition, which included scenes that Gaiman edited out of the original publication. I enjoyed all of the various visits and confrontations that Shadow endures throughout the story, but I have a feeling these bonus scenes contributed to the occasionally sluggish pace of the book. This edition also included Gaiman’s ruminations on being a Brit that has the gall to write a book about American folklore, which are both amusing and illuminating.

It’s hard to categorize this book, which can be observed by reading the list of awards it has won: the Hugo, Locus, Nebula, and Bram Stoker, among others. It’s a little bit fantasy, a little bit horror, a little bit literary fiction, and more than a little bit strange. Ultimately, though, I found myself unwilling to put it down, and I found myself in a thoughtful mood for a few days after I finished, both of which are good signs. I’d recommend it to anybody who has a craving for something that’s simultaneously familiar and ethereal.

Verdict: 4 / 5