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Anansi Boys.
Gaiman, Neil (author).
Sept. 2005. 368p. Morrow, hardcover, $26.95 (0-06-051518-X).
REVIEW.
First published August, 2005 (Booklist).
Gaiman exploits the conceit of his prizewinning American Gods (2001)—that the gods of America’s immigrant peoples are living in retirement, sort of, among us—for the purposes of a romantic screwball comedy seasoned with murder, magic, and ghosts. For feckless Fat Charlie Nancy—who actually was fat only between ages 10 and 14, during which period his mother left his father in Florida and took Charlie with her to England—his glad-handin’, practical-jokin’ father has always been an embarrassment, and things just get worse after the old man croaks. At the interment, the neighbor lady tells Charlie he has a brother, and to ask a spider for him if he wants to get in touch. One drunken night back in London, Charlie takes the ludicrous advice. BLAM-O! Spider (that’s his name) arrives, steals his girlfriend (she thinks Spider’s Charlie), gets him terminated (and put under police suspicion by his embezzling boss), sets him bouncing between London and Florida by airplane and between our reality and that of ancient African animal-gods by seance, and has him winding up, after some pretty scary goings-on, with a new life and a new love on the Caribbean isle of St. Andrews. Charlie and Spider are, you see, their father’s sons, and since he was/is Anansi the trickster-god, they can pull some pretty nifty stunts, though Charlie takes awhile learning how. As for Gaiman, he’s the folksy, witty, foolishly wise narrator to perfection, drawing us into the web he weaves as skillfully as any . . . spider. — Ray Olson
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