American Gods

Dan Johnson, MD, gave me medical information whenever I needed it, pointed out stray and unintentional anglicisms (everybody else did this as well), answered the oddest questions, and, on one July day, even flew me around northern Wisconsin in a tiny plane. In addition to keeping my life going by proxy while I wrote this book, my assistant, the fabulous Lorraine Garland, became very blasé about finding out the population of small American towns for me; I’m still not sure quite how she did it. (She’s part of a band called the Flash Girls: buy their new record, Play Each Morning, Wild Queen, and make her happy.) Terry Pratchett helped unlock a knotty plot point for me on the train to Gothenburg. Eric Edelman answered my diplomatic questions. Anna Sunshine Ison unearthed a bunch of stuff for me on the West Coast Japanese internment camps, which will have to wait for another book to be written for it never quite fitted into this one. I stole the best line of dialogue in the epilogue from Gene Wolfe, to whom, my thanks. Sergeant Kathy Ertz graciously answered even my weirdest police procedural questions and Deputy Sheriff Marshall Multhauf took me on a drive-along. Pete Clark submitted to some ridiculously personal questioning with grace and good humor. Dale Robertson was the book’s consulting hydrologist. I appreciated Dr. Jim Miller’s comments about people, language and fish, as I did the linguistic help of Margret Rodas. Jamy Ian Swiss made sure that the coin magic was magical. Any mistakes in the book are mine, not theirs.

Many good people read the manuscript and offered valuable suggestions, corrections, encouragement, and information. I am especially grateful to Colin Greenland and Susanna Clarke, John Clute and Samuel R. Delany. I’d also like to thank Owl Goingback (who really does have the world’s coolest name), Iselin Røsjø Evensen, Peter Straub, Jonathan Carroll, Kelli Bickman, Dianna Graf, Lenny Henry, Pete Atkins, Chris Ewen, Teller, Kelly Link, Barb Gilly, Will Shetterly, Connie Zastoupil, Rantz Hoseley, Diana Schutz, Steve Brust, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Roz Kaveney, Ian McDowell, Karen Berger, Wendy Japhet, Terje Nordberg, Gwenda Bond, Therese Littleton, Lou Aronica, Hy Bender, Mark Askwith, Alan Moore (who also graciously lent me “Litvinoff’s Book”), and the original Joe Sanders. Thanks also to Rebecca Wilson; and particular thanks to Stacy Weiss, for her insight. After she read the first draft, Diana Wynne Jones warned me what kind of book this was, and the perils I risked writing it, and she’s been right on every count so far.

I wish Professor Frank McConnell were still with us. I think he would have enjoyed this one.

Once I’d written the first draft I realized that a number of other people had tackled these themes before ever I got to them: in particular my favorite unfashionable author, James Branch Cabell, the late Roger Zelazny, and, of course, the inimitable Harlan Ellison, whose collection Deathbird Stories burned itself onto the back of my head when I was still of an age where a book could change me forever.

I can never quite see the point of noting down for posterity the music you listened to while writing a book, and there was an awful lot of music listened to while I was writing this. Still, without Greg Brown’s Dream Café and the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs it would have been a different book, so thanks to Greg and to Stephin. And I feel it my duty to tell you that you can experience the music of the House on the Rock on tape or CD, including that of the Mikado machine and of the World’s Largest Carousel. It’s unlike, although certainly not better than, anything else you’ve heard. Write to: The House on the Rock, Spring Green, WI 53588 USA, or call 1-608-935-3639.

My agents—Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House, Jon Levin and Erin Culley La Chapelle at CAA—were invaluable as sounding boards and pillars of wisdom.

Many people, who were waiting for things I had promised them just as soon as I finished writing this book, were astonishingly patient. I’d like to thank the good folk at Warner Bros. pictures (particularly Kevin McCormick and Lorenzo di Bonaventura), at Village Roadshow, at Sunbow, and at Miramax; and Shelly Bond, who put up with a lot.

The two people without whom: Jennifer Hershey at Harper Collins in the U.S. and Doug Young at Hodder Headline in the UK. I’m lucky to have good editors, and these are two of the best editors I’ve known. Not to mention two of the most uncomplaining, patient, and, as the deadlines whirled past us like dry leaves in a gust of wind, positively stoic.

Bill Massey came in at the end, at Headline, and lent the book his editorial eagle eye. Kelly Notaras helped shepherd it through production with grace and polish.