American Gods

Plot summary

Shadow Moon is a convict scheduled for release from prison. Two days before his scheduled release, he learns that his wife, Laura, has been killed in a car accident, and he is released early. Shadow is devastated by her death and is distraught to learn that she died alongside his best friend Robbie, with whom she had been having an affair. As he was supposed to get a job from Robbie upon his release from prison, Shadow is out of luck and has to figure out what to do now. With nowhere to go, Shadow takes a job as a bodyguard for a mysterious con man, Mr. Wednesday, and travels with him across the United States. Shadow meets a leprechaun named Mad Sweeney, who gives Shadow a magical gold coin after Shadow beats him in a fight. Shadow later tosses the coin into Laura's grave at her funeral, inadvertently bringing her back from the dead as a revenant. Shadow meets Czernobog and the three Zorya Sisters. One of the sisters gives Shadow a silver coin, coming from the Moon, to protect him. Shadow learns that Wednesday is an incarnation of Odin the All-Father, and that he is recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods, whose powers have waned as their believers have decreased in number, to participate in a battle against the New Gods – manifestations of what humanity now worships, such as technology, media, pop-culture, and modern means of transport. Shadow meets many of Wednesday's allies, including Mr. Nancy, Easter, Whiskey Jack, and John Chapman.

The New Gods' henchmen, the Spooks, abduct Shadow; Laura rescues him, killing several Spooks in the process. Wednesday tells Shadow to hide with Mr. Ibis and Mr. Jacquel (Thoth and Anubis, respectively), who run a funeral parlor in Cairo, Illinois. Sweeney appears and asks Shadow to give back the coin, which holds all of Sweeney's power. Shadow admits that he no longer has the coin, and Sweeney dies. His body is tended to by Ibis and Jacquel, who lament the loss of another Old God. On the way to the Wisconsin community of Lakeside, Shadow picks up the hitchhiker Samantha Black Crow and drops her off at her house. Once in Lakeside, Shadow hides under the alias "Mike Ainsel" and spends time with several Lakeside residents who all live simple but happy and prosperous lives. Wednesday periodically takes Shadow on jobs to meet other gods. They are pursued all the while by the Spooks, particularly Mr. Town, who blames Shadow for the death of his friends. When a teenager in Lakeside goes missing, Shadow helps the other residents search for her, to no avail. Shadow learns that children and teenagers often go missing from Lakeside. He is then arrested for breaking his parole, but escapes with help from Czernobog and Mr. Nancy.

Characters

Mortals

Shadow Moon – an ex-convict who becomes the reluctant bodyguard and errand boy of Mr. Wednesday (Odin).

Laura Moon – Shadow's wife, who dies in a car crash at the beginning of the novel, a few days before Shadow is due to be released from prison.

Samantha "Sam" Black Crow – a hitchhiking college student whom Shadow meets during his journey.

Chad Mulligan – a kind-hearted chief of police in the town of Lakeside.

The Black Hats – Mister Road, Mister Town, Mister Wood, and Mister Stone, stand in for the American obsession with conspiracy theories, operating as men in black. They work as spooks for the New Gods.

Old Gods

Mr. Wednesday – an aspect of Odin, the Old Norse god of knowledge and wisdom.

Low-Key Lyesmith – Loki, the Old Norse god of mischief and trickery. He was a close acquaintance of Shadow Moon whilst incarcerated.

Czernobog – the Slavic god of darkness and twin brother to Belobog, the god of light.

The Zorya Sisters – relatives of Czernobog, sisters who represent Dawn (Zorya Utrennyaya), Dusk (Zorya Vechernyaya), and the Midnight Star (Zorya Polunochnaya). In Slavic lore, they are servants of Dažbog who guard and watch over the doomsday hound, Simargl. Simargl is said to be chained to the star Polaris in the constellation Ursa Minor (the "Little Bear") and, according to legend, if the chain ever breaks the hound will devour the world.

Mr. Nancy – Anansi, a trickster spider god from Ghanaian folklore. He often makes fun of people for their stupidity, a recurring aspect of his personality in his old stories.

Mr. Ibis – Thoth, the Ancient Egyptian god of knowledge and writing. He runs a funeral parlor with Mr. Jacquel in Cairo, Illinois. He often writes short biographies of people who brought folkloric beings with them to the United States.

Mr. Jacquel – Anubis, the Ancient Egyptian god of the dead and mummification. He is an expert at preparing bodies for the wake at funerals.

Bast – Bastet, the Ancient Egyptian cat goddess. Often appears as a small house cat and heals Shadow's bruises and aches after he has been beaten.

Horus – the Ancient Egyptian god of the sky.

Easter – Ēostre, the Germanic goddess of the dawn.

Mad Sweeney – Suibhne, a king from an old Irish story. Though not portrayed as such in his story, he calls himself a "Leprechaun" despite his description as being nearly 7-feet-tall. Sweeney is foul-mouthed and a frequent drinker.

New Gods

Technical Boy – New God of technology and the Internet, personified as an adult-sized fat child.

Media – New Goddess of television and pop culture. She often communicates by hijacking whatever is showing on television, for example communicating with Shadow via Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy and the cast of Cheers.

The Intangibles – New Gods of the modern stock market, they are a personification of the "Invisible hand of the market".

Mr. World – leader of The Black Hats and the New God of globalization.

Other New Gods mentioned include those of automobiles, locomotives, heavier-than-air flight, cosmetic surgery, and various drugs.

Influences

The novel's dedication reads "for absent friends – Kathy Acker and Roger Zelazny and all points in between."

Gaiman has discussed the origin point for American Gods as a novel, citing his experience as an immigrant in America in 1992, where he began to form the vague idea of the book in his mind. Additionally, while experiencing a layover in an airport in Reykjavik in 1998, Gaiman states that he thought "I wonder if they brought their gods with them, when they went to America?"

The Discworld novel Small Gods explores a similar origin of deities (thoughtform). While Gaiman says that he did not read the book by Terry Pratchett, he thought they shared a worldview due to their same geographic origins and, more importantly, their daily phone conversations. He had also sought advice from Pratchett on resolving plot elements of American Gods.

According to Gaiman, American Gods is not based on Diana Wynne Jones's 1975 novel Eight Days of Luke, "although they bear an odd relationship, like second cousins once removed or something." When working on the structure of a story linking gods and days of the week, he realised that this idea had already been used in Eight Days of Luke. He abandoned the story, but later used the idea when writing American Gods to depict Wednesday and Shadow meeting on the god's namesake day.

Of John James' 1966 novel Votan, Gaiman stated: "I think probably the best book ever done about the Norse was a book that I couldn't allow myself to read between coming up with the idea of American Gods and finishing it. After it was published, I actually sat down and allowed myself to read it for the first time in 15 years, and discovered it was just as good as I thought it was."

In his introduction to Fritz Leiber's The Knight and Knave of Swords, Gaiman acknowledges Leiber's portrayal of Odin and Loki had "definitely smudged into" and informed his take on the characters.

Writing and promotion

While Gaiman was writing American Gods, his publishers set up a promotional web site featuring a weblog in which Gaiman described the day-to-day process of writing, revising, publishing, and promoting the novel. After the novel was published, the website evolved into a more general Official Neil Gaiman Web Site. As of 2021, Gaiman sporadically adds to the weblog, describing the writing, revising, publishing, or promoting of his current projects; but tends to use social media like Tumblr or Twitter for more personal details or reader questions.

On 28 February 2008, Gaiman announced on his journal that for one month the complete text of American Gods would be available to the public on his publisher's website.

Reception

The book won the 2002 Hugo, Nebula, Locus, SFX and Bram Stoker Awards, all for Best Novel, and likewise received nominations for the 2001 BSFA Award, as well as the 2002 World Fantasy, International Horror Guild and Mythopoeic, and British Fantasy awards. It won the 2003 Geffen Award.

In May 2010, American Gods was selected in an online poll to be the first "One Book One Twitter" book. In 2014, when the television show adaptation was announced, author Abraham Riesman criticized the move as being a "bad idea", highlighting the aspects of the book that did not age well or were offensive to some cultures. Beyond this, academics have claimed the work has ontological and epistemic implications, and, as part of the body of Gaiman's work, explored the appropriative style.

Publishing history

The book was published in 2001 by Headline in the United Kingdom and by William Morrow in the United States.

A special tenth anniversary edition, which includes the "author's preferred text" and 12,000 additional words, was published in June 2011 by William Morrow. The tenth anniversary text is identical to the signed and numbered limited edition released in 2003 by Hill House Publishers, and to the edition from Headline, Gaiman's publisher in the UK since 2005. The tenth anniversary edition marked the first time the author's preferred text had been available in wide release outside the UK.

Two audio versions of the book were produced and published by Harper Audio. An unabridged version of the original published edition, read by George Guidall, was released in 2001.

A full cast audiobook version of the tenth anniversary edition, including the author's preferred text and 12,000 additional words, was released in 2011. The voice cast included more than a dozen actors, including:

Fred Berman as Mr. Ibis, Iceman, Gwydoin and Salim

Dennis Boutsikaris as the Narrator

Anne Bobby as Audrey Burton, Zorya P., Essie Tregowan, Easter, and Vegas waitress

Tim Cain as Mr. Nancy

Richard Ferrone as Low Key Lyesmith, Hinzelmaan, Mr. Stone and Mr. World

Adam Grupper as Chad Mulligan, Harry Bluejay, Mr. Wood, and Warden

Sarah Jones as Laura, Bilquis, Mama Zou Zou, Widow Paris, Mama Ji, Diana and Zorya U.

Pete Larkin as Czernobog, Jacquel, and Whiskey Jack

In other media

Comics

Dark Horse Comics publishes a series of comic books based on the novel. The comic books were co written by Gaiman and P. Craig Russell. With art by Russell and Scott Hampton, among others.

Television

Starz developed a television series from the novel with Bryan Fuller and Michael Green. The series debuted in April 2017. At the end of season 1, Fuller stepped down as showrunner and was replaced by Jesse Alexander. The two had previously worked together on Star Trek: Discovery and Hannibal. While the show ended on season 3 without adapting the whole book, production company Fremantle expressed an interest in making a television film to conclude the story, and in 2024 Shadow Moon's actor Ricky Whittle stated he and Gaiman were seeking a streaming service to pull off these plans.

Music

The power metal band Blind Guardian wrote a song titled "Secrets of the American Gods" based on the novel, on their 2022 album The God Machine.

Related works

Gaiman's next novel, Anansi Boys (2005), was conceived before American Gods and shares a character, Mr. Nancy (Anansi, the spider god of African legend).

In an interview with MTV News published on 22 June 2011, Gaiman said that he had plans for a direct sequel to American Gods. Gaiman had plans for a sequel even while writing the first book and has said that he is likely to focus on the New Gods in the sequel.

In addition to the planned sequel, Gaiman has written two short story sequels featuring Shadow Moon. "The Monarch of the Glen", a novella first published in the 2003 anthology Legends II, takes place in Scotland two years after American Gods. The second short story, "Black Dog", was collected in Gaiman's 2015 Trigger Warning. It takes place a year later in Derbyshire's Peak District. In the introduction for Trigger Warning Gaiman said that he had one final standalone story that would take Shadow to London before he returns to the US and the start of American Gods 2.