Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys: Masterful Storytelling from Comic Book Author and Novelist

In the 1990s, Neil Gaiman was probably better known as a comic book author than as a novelist. With the publication of highly successful novels in recent years, his claim to fame has shifted. Gaiman's most recent book, Anansi Boys, gives fans of quality novels something to talk about.

Anansi Boys is, in some ways, a successor to Gaiman's earlier novel, American Gods, which came out in 2001. Gaiman actually came up with the concept for Anansi Boys prior to writing American Gods. However, Anansi Boys is not a sequel, but simply set in the same ficticious world of American Gods.

The novel tells the story of the two sons of the god Anansi, a trickster god of west African legends, who went by Mr. Nancy in the mortal realm. One of the sons, known to everyone as "Fat Charlie," (despite the fact that he has not been fat since he was a young boy) is an average man, living and working in England. When his father dies, Fat Charlie returns to the United States where he discovers that he has a brother, about whom he had forgotten. Fat Charlie's brother, Spider, reintroduces himself into Charlie's life, and begins causing all sorts of problems for Charlie and his fiancée, Rosie.

Although Charlie has always accepted his average life, not believing there to be anything exceptional about him, he discovers, with the help of some of his elderly female former neighbors, that he and his brother are the sons of a god. These same neighbors had sent Spider away when the two boys were young, and Mr. Nancy's death and Charlie's subsequent acceptance of his lost brother has brought Spider back, with a vengeance. Through a number of trials and tribulations, during which his normal life is thrown into complete chaos, Charlie makes attempts to set things right and restore his personal world to the semblance of order it had previously.

In the end, Charlie is successful, though the exact details of his restoration of the world are not quite as anticipated. Without giving away too much of the ending, I can say that the lives of the main protagonists work out for the best, though with twists that may or may not be expected.

Much as he did in American Gods, Neil Gaiman proves himself to be a masterful storyteller, capable of blending aspects of various cultures and lifestyles into compelling fictional worlds. The two books complement one another, but you don't need to have read one to appreciate the other.

October 1, 2006, is the scheduled date for the paperback release of Anansi Boys, though the book has been available in hardcover format since September of 2005.