Since discovering author Neil Gaiman last summer, I’ve been meting
out his novels to myself like a harried mother with a limited supply of
Halloween candy. So, after surviving
2015 relatively intact, I rewarded myself with his 2006 novel, Anansi Boys. The novel proved to be a
treat worth savoring as it exemplifies the very things that make a Gaiman
novel worth letting your clothes lie wrinkling in the dryer: characters that are
funny, endearing, and immanently human;
a story that is fantastical and engrossing; and a narrative voice that is
confiding and not a tiny bit cheeky.
Anansi Boys builds upon themes that readers of his earlier
novel, American Gods, will find familiar; however, it can stand alone perfectly well.
The story opens in England, with “everyman” Charlie Nancy. He’s your average work-a-day fella, the
archetypical accountant: shy, quiet, unassuming, and unremarkable in any
way. When pressured by his do-gooder fiancé
to attempt to contact his long-estranged father to invite him to their
impending nuptials (Charlie’s reluctance to do so stems from what he perceives as
a childhood of perpetual and near-fatal embarrassment at the hands of, via
proximity to, and on behalf of said father).
Upon phoning a childhood neighbor in Florida, Charlie is surprised to
find that his father has quite suddenly died. He crosses the Atlantic to just
miss the funeral, and learns two things that beggar belief. The kindly old neighbor, Mrs. Callyanne
Higgler, informs him, matter-of-factly, that his father was the God/Legend
Anansi, and that he has a brother, who inherited all the father-to-son god-like
traits. When asked how he might reach
this heretofore unknown brother, Mrs. Higgler casually mentions that he need
only to speak to a spider on the matter.
One long transatlantic flight and several glasses of wine later, Charlie,
on a bit of a lark, does just that. What
follows from there is a wildly entertaining journey that crosses continents and
worlds.
Lovers of fantasy and/or plain old clever writing need look
no further, Neil Gaiman has it covered.
Posted by Jennifer Wilson
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