American Gods

His friend nodded. “It has a cost,” he said. “Like I said. You have to be all things to all people. Pretty soon, you’re spread so thin you’re hardly there at all. It’s not good.”

He reached out one callused hand—the fingers were etched with old chisel scars—and squeezed Shadow’s hand. “I know, I know. I should count my blessings. And one of those blessings is getting time just to meet you like this, and to talk. It’s great that you were able to make it,” he said. “Really great. Don’t be a stranger now.”

“No. I’ll just be a friend you’ve not met yet,” said Shadow.

“Funny guy,” said the man with the beard.

“Ratatosk, ratatosk,” chattered the squirrel in Shadow’s ear. He could taste the bitter wine still, in his mouth and the back of his throat, and it was almost dark.

 

The following bonus material first appeared in the 2005 paperback edition of American Gods: The Author’s Preferred Text, published by Review, an imprint of Headline Book Publishing, Great Britain.

An Interview with Neil Gaiman

Which godlike powers would you like to posses?

I want to make time stretchier. I would like much more rubbery days, and I just wish that you could lean on a week, and sort of push the walls out a bit, and suddenly about nineteen extra days would rush in to fill the vacuum.

There is not enough time, and I wind up just wanting to do things that I don’t have time for. There are so many things that I’d love to do, and I have to put off, or that it’s a matter of me choosing, when really I’d love to do both. And if only time were infinitely stretchy, I could.

What is your favorite roadside attraction?

The House on the Rock in American Gods actually is real. Most people think I made it up, whereas in actual fact I just toned it down a bit so that people would believe it. Because being a real place it has no obligation to be likely. So I left out the 120-piece robot orchestra and other stuff.

I remember, the first time I went to The House on the Rock, thinking, I just don’t believe this place, and the second time I went to The House on the Rock still not believing this place. Then I had to go back for Entertainment Weekly to take my photograph standing beside the largest carousel in the world.

It was the single loudest photo session I’ve ever had because they actually pitch the volume of the mechanical instruments in that room in order to keep people moving through. You’re not really meant to linger too long by the largest carousel in the world.

The photo session went on for several hours and the photographer was communicating with me entirely by hand gestures. He would tap his chin and point up so that I’d know to look up a bit.

How did you find out about it?

Like most roadside attractions in America, they have signposts for it that start about 300 miles away, and imply it’s just around the corner. I’d seen all these signs saying THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK, and thought it was very near where I lived, and eventually discovered it was 250 miles away.

On the other hand, Rock City, which is also in American Gods, is worse, because I saw my first signpost to SEE ROCK CITY, THE WORLD’S WONDER driving through mountainous Tennessee or Kentucky or somewhere, and again assumed it was just around the corner, and then drove for the greater part of a day.

And then of course, because it’s almost impossible to get to once you’re there, I drove straight past it. Then I drove back and checked it out, and decided it was going to be in my book.

What was your strangest plane journey?

The trouble with plane journeys is you start folding them all together. I do remember one which was not necessarily my strangest plane journey, but had something I’ve never seen happen before or since.

I’d just been served with a large cup of apple juice and the plane hit one of those air pockets and dropped several hundred feet. It didn’t bother any of us because we were all seat belted in, but my apple juice shot straight out of my cup. The cup remained in the same place, but the contents made a slow and incredibly graceful arc across the cabin and landed in a businessman’s lap half an airplane away.

I was with Dave McKean at the time on a Mr. Punch signing tour and we tried to pretend it wasn’t us. At least they knew we hadn’t actually thrown it; it was the apple juice that made a mad leap for freedom.

What’s your favorite coin trick?

The favorite coin trick I’ve ever done was when I started work on American Gods and I had a large notebook, a fountain pen, and a copy of Bobo’s Modern Coin Magic.