American Gods

American Gods is one of my favorite books, though I think I only read it the one time, probably early in college (so 2004-2006-ish.) The juxtaposition and mixture of the magical and the mundane - in a way that wasn't just the usual half-assed Magical Realism - really grabbed me.  While I think I cite Stephen King's Dark Tower series as a huge influence on me (which I started reading in my senior year of high school and finished when the last book came out in my first year of college) American Gods also has to be up there on my list - top five at least.

It's a little crazy that this year both of these stories are getting screen adaptations, and while I don't know what to expect of the Dark Tower (the shots I'm seeing from the set are all way too urban, without enough crazy desert otherworld for my tastes) I was hugely excited to see that Bryan Fuller was the one bringing this story to the screen.

I of course loved Hannibal (a lot of posts on this blog are about that show) and I was a fan of both Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies. The surreal aesthetic Fuller developed for Hannibal, though, works absolutely perfectly for American Gods, giving me the sensation of really seeing the book as I imagined it in my head right up there on-screen.

So far, the pilot has kept pretty close to the book (as I recall it at least.) The protagonist is Shadow Moon, who is introduced in prison awaiting his release. Near the end of year three of his six year sentence, Shadow is getting out on good behavior. His wife Laura is waiting for him to come home, and his friend Robbie has set him up with a job right out prison. So everything is on track, but something doesn't feel right. Shadow confesses both to his cellmate Low-Key and Laura on the phone that he feels like there's an axe hanging over his head.

And then the axe falls - Shadow is called into the warden's office where he is informed that his wife died in a car accident, and that they are letting him go early so he can attend his wife's funeral.

Dealing with various air travel inconveniences, Shadow meets a conman with whom he shares a first class row on an airplane. The man introduces himself as Mr. Wednesday, offering Shadow a job if he wants it.

Shadow declines, but when his flight stops due to weather, he chooses to drive the rest of the way, winding up in a strange bar that looks like a giant alligator head. It's here that he meets Mr. Wednesday again, as well as a guy named Mad Sweeney, a super-tall leprechaun (or so he claims.) Sweeney provokes Shadow to fight him, and for his trouble, leaves him a golden coin.

It's at this bar that Shadow discovers that Robbie died too, and his job prospects are gone. After losing a coin flip he rigged to win, Shadow agrees to work for Mr. Wednesday.

Shadow goes to Laura's funeral, where Robbie's wife Audrey informs him that their late spouses were having an affair with one another.

When Laura is buried, Shadow tosses his coin onto the fresh dirt on her coffin, and unseen by him, it sinks into the earth.

And then Shadow is abducted by a strange being who book readers know is called the Technical Boy, who discerns that Shadow is truly loyal to the man who hired him, and attempts to have him killed. Shadow is beaten by faceless creatures that seem to be made of digital polygons and is hanged from a tree, nearly dying until some mysterious protector brutally tears the faceless "children" apart.

Of course, it's been a long time since I read the book, but I think this more or less tracks with what was in the source material. I do think that they've expanded the role of Audrey a bit (in the book we basically get the one exchange at the funeral, but I think they've talked about making her more of a character in this.) We do get the horrifying introduction to Bilquis in this episode (which seems like a direct translation of what's in the book) as well as a prologue that depicts the first arrival of Odin in America. The "Coming to America" segments from the book are likely to show up as these sorts of vignettes.

There's a lot to talk about thematically here (especially given that most of the characters in this story are almost literally walking themes) and also some questions about what constitutes a spoiler for a seventeen year old book, but I'm going to leave this post with just my general reaction: I'm super happy this show exists and I love how it looks and I'm really excited to see more.

(EDIT: Ok, one theme thing I had to mention: Shadow is haunted by hanging imagery - he and Low-Key talk about gallows humor, the (presumably white-supremacist) inmates give him lynching gestures as he walks by, and ultimately, the Technical Boy's goons hang him from a tree. Given that this is a story about an African American man dealing with the mythology and power of America's past, one can't ignore the physical threat that black people in this country have been under from the beginning. But in addition to this violent hatred, the noose and hanging imagery also ties things to Odin, who was the gallows god and who hanged himself from the World Tree as a sacrifice to himself to gain wisdom and knowledge - and who is the subject of the Coming to America prologue.)