American Gods

Ah yes, American Gods — because America was never going to be content with ordinary roadside attractions when it could have ancient deities sulking in motels.

Neil Gaiman’s great mythic road trip follows Shadow Moon as he is released from prison, loses almost everything, and falls in with the mysterious Mr Wednesday, a man who is clearly not the sort of person you should trust but very much the sort of person a novel requires. What follows is part fantasy, part Americana, part theological employment crisis, as old gods, new gods, belief, media, money, death and roadside kitsch all collide across a landscape of diners, highways and bad weather.

It is a book full of grand ideas wearing cheap suits. Gods lurk in forgotten towns, miracles happen next to vending machines, and America itself becomes the strangest character in the room: vast, haunted, commercial, lonely, and very badly lit.

This Headline edition is in Good condition, as sold by Crappy Old Books. Ideal for readers who like their fantasy intelligent, strange, darkly funny, and faintly suspicious of television.

A modern myth with petrol-station coffee in its veins.

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