After taking on the gods of death and dreams in his legendary Sandman series of graphic novels, the darkly imaginative Neil Gaiman applied his estimable powers of creation to the standard novel form. Readers of American Gods reveled in the depth and sophistication he achieved, as the longer, prose format gave Gaiman's ideas room to stretch and grow. Equally funny and macabre, he managed to build the extraordinary from a recognizable world.
He produces another such feat in his newest novel, Anansi Boys (available September 20), which involves several characters from Gaiman's previous novel in a more lighthearted yet no less entertaining tightrope walk across the chasm between reality and the divine. Fat Charlie's life in London was designed to escape the embarrassment of his freewheeling, karaoke-loving father. But it's only when he learns of his father's death that Fat Charlie realizes embarrassment wasn't the half of it, and that life is rarely what it seems. The confrontation of gods both petty and powerful with the exigencies of modern life makes this classic Gaiman.
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