American Gods
‘Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end’
- from American Gods
Just before his release from prison, Shadow learns that his wife has been killed in a car accident. Aimless and in shock, he meets Mr Wednesday, a hustler and con man with a number of peculiar friends. After accepting a job as Wednesday’s bodyguard and driver, Shadow finds himself on a road trip across the haunted landscape of America and, along with his shady boss, is soon embroiled in a conflict that could destroy them all: a war between the old gods and the new.
‘Original, engrossing, and endlessly inventive, a picaresque journey across America where the travelers are even stranger than the roadside attractions’
- George R. R. Martin
Winner of multiple awards, including the Hugo and the Nebula, American Gods is Neil Gaiman’s sweeping exploration of story, myth and the shifting nature of belief itself. According to Mr Wednesday, gods travelled to the new world with their immigrant worshippers only to flounder in a land both too strange and too modern to nurture them.
Although the story is rooted in the familiar – Gaiman gives us Egyptian deities who run funeral parlours, and gods who drive cabs to make a living – it tears back the veil to reveal the pulsing supernatural heart of America. Crammed with unconventional yet wholly engaging characters, this story of coin tricks, cons and misdirection is considered by many to be Gaiman’s masterpiece.
