Today I finished reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods for the second time, back to back, read and re-read. It’s one of only a handful of books that I’ve ever given that much of my life.

Many thanks to @HarperCollinsCa for offering me a copy of this book so that I could participate in the One Book, One Twitter movement this summer.

In case you missed #1b1t – Keep your eyes peeled for future reads! – here’s how it worked: Everyone on Twitter who was interested in a worldwide book club voted on a book to be read. Book choices were narrowed down and voted on, book chosen and reading schedule laid out, then hashtags for the book itself and each chapter in it were determined. People were to tweet and reply and have a book group type conversation using the main hashtag for general musings and the chapter tags for thoughts relevant to that chapter. Voila, instant filtering created to prevent spoilers, allowing everyone to read at their own pace. (It was a really awesome experience!)

I signed up without hesitation.  Beyond the appeal of using Twitter for a book club – genius! – Gaiman’s fantasy entertains like no other. It feels derivative of nothing and is only itself, totally new creative imaginings. The fantasy genre  has copycatting as an unfortunate and common flaw on its shelves. Everyone wants to be the next Tolkien.

But Gaiman is unique. For me, he has consistently made the hero’s journey from small town to the larger world and all the lessons that go along seem entirely new each time he puts pen to paper. Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book did so, one in underground London and the other in a New England graveyard

This time around, in American Gods, Gaiman impressed me by penning yet another amazing story but with even better amusement park thrills and taking his macabre style to the next level, writing a distinctly smart and adult fantasy novel.

American Gods is a literal road trip through small-town America – complete with constant weather updates that would make CNN proud and bank clocks alternately displaying the time then the local temperature – as well as a figurative one, illuminating the soul of a country and the fight over who shall rule it. And yet it is Shadow’s story, our narrator and main character, a young man with too much past for his age, whisked off onto that thing which at first seems innocent but is really larger than life. It is his defining moment.

“That was 1950. Seemed that year that the only way  that winter would end was is somebody hammered a stake through it’s heart.”

It really excites me to finally read a fantstical tale by a genre author that I know will one day be read as a classic in university programs. There must be so much more to look forward to, so much not yet written, if we’ve only just discovered the potential of fantasy. And yet, is it new… or something of the old world, a lesson forgotten and remembered again? Quite the common theme.

Hours and hours could be spend mulling over the mythology in this book. I wish I had known more before reading it as many of the innuendos, descriptions and hints were lost upon my half educated neurons, but the novel still works. And works so very well. What the reader does get and know and catch and connect is enough. The story is there and you feel triumphant for piecing together what you do know. The rest sits in memory and mystery with hope for later reveal. You won’t be disappointed. All manner of characters, the ghastly, grotesque and pitiful, become endearing friends that you will miss. Oh, and you will google the names of gods.

“Nobody ever believed in Paul Bunyan. He came staggering out of a New York ad agency in 1910 and filled the nation’s myth stomach with empty calories.”

It is a who-dunnit, an essay wrapped in an adventure about who Americans really worship, written with imagery that whips your hair as you breeze throught it’s pages.  Do me a favour and read this book slowly. Savour its lines. Heartbreakingly beautiful. So alive.

“…and the crash of the breakers on the beach of skulls was not loud enough to drown that whisper.”

I’m so glad I gave it a re-read. Picked up some essential points that I had missed because I read too fast, noticed lots of breadcrumbs leading to the conclusion if only you have the eyes to see, and – like Shadow – feel that it sunk in deeply. An experience I try to call forward as I know it’s in me but can’t catch the details the more I attempt to grasp for them. But it’s definitely a real part of me.

“Perhaps its a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That’s hows well they go together.”

ps. Sometime shortly after my first read-through, a HUGE blackbird landed on a low branch of the maple in my backyard. He looked like a raven, and I smiled, wanting so badly to re-enact the scene on page 158. Who, indeed, had come to visit?

p.s.s. Try the book for yourself. You can start reading it for free here!

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