American Gods - Hardcover

Gaiman, Neil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747274231 ISBN 13: 9780747274230

Publisher: Feature, 2001

Synopsis

After three years in prison, Shadow has done his time. But as the days, then the hours, then the seconds until his release tick away, he can feel a storm building. Two days before he gets out, his wife Laura dies in a mysterious car crash, in apparently 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 they are being pursued by someone with whom Shadow must make his peace ...

Disturbing, gripping and profoundly strange, Neil Gaiman's epic new novel sees him on the road to finding the soul of America.

About this title

Review:

Within just a few pages of Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods, he commandingly reveals that he is at his considerable best with this disturbing and dark journey into the hidden soul of America. Gaiman, one of the most talented and imaginative writers at work today, achieved nigh-legendary status with his comic Sandman, which took the genre to heights that even the equally talented Alan Moore had not attained; Gaiman's subsequent career as a novelist has displayed the same glittering inventiveness and exquisite use of language.

Gaiman's protagonist Shadow has patiently done his time in prison. But as the moment of his release approaches, he begins to sense that some unnamed disaster is lying in wait for him. As he makes his way home, he encounters the mysterious Mr Wednesday, who appears to be both a refugee from a distant country at war and the King of America. And perhaps even a god. As Shadow and Mr Wednesday begin a bizarre odyssey across the United States, solving murders is only one of their accomplishments. With an epic storm of supernatural origin brewing, one questions whether they will be destroyed before Shadow pays the price for grim mistakes in his past.

The use of language here is impeccable, and it is wedded to a surreal narrative that brings out the most quirky and unsettling aspects of Gaiman's imagination. Forget Gaiman the Guru: just enjoy Gaiman the consummate writer:

He opened his mouth to catch the rain as it fell, moistening his cracked lips and his dry tongue, wetting the ropes that bound him to the trunk of the tree. There was a flash of lightning so bright it fell like a blow to his eyes, transforming the world into an intense panorama of image and after-image. The wind tugged at Shadow, trying to pull him from the tree, flaying him, cutting to the bone. Shadow knew in his soul that the real storm had truly begun...

--Barry Forshaw

Review:

'For sheer ambition, erudition and imagination, this takes some beating' Big Issue (Big Issue)

'A jaw-droppingly good, scary epic positively drenched in metaphors and symbols' Midweek (Midweek)

'A surreal road trip that seems to be part Jack Kerouac, part Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' Birmingham Post (Birmingham Post)

'They don't come much better than this. Really. And the magic of Neil Gaiman's novels leave you feeling almost light-headed, as though all the wonders of his stories are as real as night and day... Combines fantastical figures with human heroes and once again proves Gaiman to be one of the leading writers of fiction and mythology' Punch (Punch)

'...something approaching a noir masterpiece, part Jim Thompson, part David Lynch, with a pinch of Philip K Dick' W Magazine (W Magazine)

'AMERICAN GODS is some kind of miracle. Neil Gaiman has managed to tell the tallest of tales in the most heart rending and believable fashion, despite the story's truly mythic scale. It is an important, essential book. As Pablo Neruda once said of another world class novel, not to read it is the same as never having tasted an orange' Jonathan Carroll

'From his first collection of short stories, Neil Gaiman has always been a remarkable, remarkably gifted writer, but AMERICAN GODS is the first of his fictions to match, even surpass, the breathtaking imaginative sweep and suggestiveness of his classic SANDMAN series of graphic novels. Here we have poignancy, terror, nobility, magic, sacrifice, wisdom, mystery, heartbreak, and a hardearned sense of resolution - a real emotional richness and grandeur that emerge from masterful storytelling' Peter Straub

'Neil Gaiman, a writer of rare perception and endless imagination, has long been an English treasure; and is now an American treasure as well' William Gibson

'There's no one quite like Neil Gaiman. AMERICAN GODS is Gaiman at the top of his game, original, engrossing, and endlessly inventive, a picaresque journey across America where the travellers are even stranger than the roadside attractions' George R R Martin

'You long for writers like Neil Gaiman, his vision is so personal and idiosyncratic. And unexpected, like the writer himself. An Englishman living in America, he explores the contradictions with a light all his own' Chris Carter, creator of The X Files

About this edition

• Publisher: Feature
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0747274231
• ISBN 13: 9780747274230
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 512