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11/21/2004 Entry: "Teaching American Gods"

From Neil Gaiman's journal, this teacher's description of teaching American Gods to high-school students (some advanced placement, I think, and some not). "Apparently, the scene at the end of Chapter 1 where a prostitute absorbs a man into her vagina (she's the goddess Bilquis) had been popular with the kids. One of the more dutiful students finished the assigned reading and then ran to a dormmate, book in hand, and said, 'You've got to read this, you won't believe it!' That created a chain reaction, and not only were all of my students rushing to read the chapter, but plenty of students from other classes were borrowing copies of the book to read."

It's a book I really enjoyed. Time for a re-read, soon! There's a sequel on the way, or is there!? "And seeing a lot of people have asked, Anansi Boys really isn't an American Gods sequel. The Shadow novella, 'The Monarch of the Glen', in Legends II, is definitely a sequel. The next batch of Shadow in London stories will be sequels. The book where Shadow goes back to America will be a sequel. Anansi Boys really is a book which shares a character from American Gods, who really was on loan from Anansi Boys anyway. I think it's a comic novel, which may get scary toward the end. But right now I'm in the first half so it's still a comic novel."

More on the original publication and PR campaign for American Gods.