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I find it really weird how many American media products have the word "American" in the title. Obviously, this; a few weeks back I also read American Rust. You've got your American Beauty, American Ninja, An American Werewolf in London. American Psycho. American Sniper. American Pie, American Dad, American Graffiti. What is going on here, what are they trying to prove?? I really don't understand it. I mean you'd never get "British Beauty", "French Psycho", would you? That just seems completely laughable.

Anyway, I really didn't get this book. It made no sense to me at all. I mean it's a fun conceit, that gods are living among men in modern day America, desperate to regain the faith they once commanded, but I just felt like it wasn't thought through properly. It presents itself as being predicated on the idea that ‘America is a bad land for gods� � this is something that characters keep saying to one another, moodily, that America is a really bad land for gods � and this is apparently why all the gods are now living hand-to-mouth existences as drifters or menial labourers.

Only � huh? Are we talking about the same America here? The one where 51 percent of the population think that humans were created by a divine being, and a further 40 percent think they were created by evolution which was set in motion by a divine being (leaving, as Tim Minchin said, a very small percentage of Americans who are right)? Is that the America that is supposed to be a bad land for gods? Do me a favour, it must be one of the most religious countries in the western world. I've driven through my share of rural Tennessee, where much of American Gods takes place, and one of the most striking things about these communities is the fact that there seems to be one church for every six or seven houses. God is invoked on the currency, on the news, by the head of state, and in schoolrooms every morning by little kids.

This is what is so frustrating about the book, because it seems like a brilliant chance to examine religion in the US in a cool and interesting way � but it doesn't. It either doesn't dare or it doesn't bother. I mean � if you're going to run with this idea that gods are walking around, with the more powerful deities being those who have the most believers, then where the fuck is Yahweh? I'm supposed to believe that Anubis is twatting around driving a hearse in fucking Cairo, IL. � despite the fact that no one in the history of America has ever worshipped Anubis � and yet Jesus doesn't make a single appearance? Somehow it's OK to play around with foreign gods that seem quaint or folkloric, but monotheism's off the table. It just didn't make any sense to me.¹

Instead, what we have to propel the narrative along is just a kind of comic-book war that we're supposed to care about. So although there were quite a few scenes that had me flipping the pages with engagement, there was always this nagging feeling that none of it really meant anything and that I didn't really care very much what happened to anyone. It doesn't help that the protagonist (with the dreadful name of ‘Shadow Moon�) is, for a central character, annoyingly passive and lacking in personality (although the goddesses he encounters still have a remarkable habit of wanting to have sex with him).

As for the writing style, well, it's fine, but it has absolutely no flair. There's quite an interesting bit in the Acknowledgements where Gaiman thanks many of his beta-readers and editors for spotting ‘stray and unintentional anglicisms�, presumably so he could remove them; this I think is something that contributes to the featureless blandness of his style. I'm not saying he is unentitled to this voice or anything like that � his wife is American, he lives in America, this is totally an authentic voice for him. It's just not one that has any character. It works in a kind of tab-A-into-slot-B way.

This is certainly not a bad book and it's quite readable � I think I'm just disappointed because I had unfairly high hopes, and I liked the concept, and I have a lot of friends who really enjoyed it. For me it was just a bit baffling and cartoony. In the same way that His Dark Materials is like a children's story for grown-ups, American Gods felt like an adult story for children. This is my third Neil Gaiman book (after Sandman and Smoke and Mirrors) and they have all been underwhelming; I think I'll just leave him alone now, since I'm sure they deserve higher ratings than I'm prepared to give them, but that's what you get when I try and squeeze in a review at 01:23 am in a foreign city when I still have another two hours' work to do before I can go to bed.


¹This "Tenth Anniversary Edition" includes in its appendices a brief section in which Jesus does, in fact make a brief appearance. This was cut from the original published version, and you can see why; it is very short and it raises more questions than it answers. The problem is, these are the questions the book should have been about.