Holidays are not a good time for downer reads. I knew this in theory, but it really sank in when, during a week in a beach house surrounded by my best friends, I attempted to read a book featuring a love story between a suicidal junkie and a needle exchange volunteer. Can you even imagine? I got, to my credit, a third of the way through it, before putting a pin in it and scanning back through my Kindle for a more holiday-friendly re-read. American Gods is what I came up with.
For me, a lover of fantasy generally and of Neil Gaiman in particular, diving back into this novel was like that first gulp of Friday night wine after a long, stressful working week. The premise, simply put, is that all of the gods ever worshipped by humans really exist; belief somehow generates them, and, since every culture eventually ends up in America, their adherents have brought them all there at some point. Continue reading American Gods