Product Description

After three years in prison, Shadow has done his time. But as the time until his release ticks away, he can feel a storm brewing. Two days before he gets out, his wife Laura dies in a mysterious car crash, in 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 the storm is about to break... Disturbing, gripping and profoundly strange, Gaiman's epic new novel sees him on the road to the heart of America.

Includes extra material exclusive to Headline Review's edition

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2838 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-19
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

Independent
`This is a fantastic novel...runs as precisely as clockwork, but reads as smoothly as silk or warm chocolate'

Peter Straub
`Poignancy, terror, nobility, magic, sacrifice, wisdom, mystery, heartbreak, and a hard-earned sense of resolution... Masterful storytelling'

Stephen King
`Gaiman is, simply put, a treasure-house of story, and we are lucky to have him'

Customer Reviews

Perfect
Ambitious, learned, witty, grotesque, moving and beautifully written, this book - thriller, love story, detective novel, religious meditation and exploration of myth and legend - aims so high I wasn't sure, reading it, that he was going to pull it off. But he does. If there's a better book out there, I haven't read it yet.

Incredibly crap (may I use this word here?)
I bought this book because I liked Gaiman's style (or ideas) as they were exposed in some comic books and movies based on his work.
But this is the first novel of him that I have read and, certainly, I chose the wrong one.
This book won several prestigious prizes, including the Hugo, and that's what made me feel upset and scared enough to produce my feedback here.
Upset because I deducted the quality of the book by trusting the prizes mentioned on the cover (poor fool); scared because I wonder how changed is the literary world from the time when the Hugo was assigned to the work of Heinlein or Dick, to name a few.
Conclusion: American Gods is a chaotic mistery (or result) of our times.
For the guy who had the guts to criticize it as much as I did: I am not so sure that we belong to a minority.
Tagline: easy to forget.

Get on with the story!
This is an interesting story lost in a book that is simply full of too much padding. I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman from his Sandman days but this attempt at novel writing is simply too self-indulgent and I couldn't recommend it to anyone.

A good editor required!