Anansi Boys is Gaiman's own blend of mythologically charged thriller, along the lines of his earlier novel American Gods. This time the story is set in the UK and the Caribbean and it's about Gods, the magic of stories and the power of song.
And in audio at least, it's even better.
The audio book is comparatively easy listening and the narrator, Lenny Henry, is an uncannily successful match for the story. Born in the UK to Jamaican parents, Henry straddles the two cultures comfortably and brings the songs, strories and characters in the novel to glorious life. An absolute delight to those of us who enjoy accents and good story-telling.
Blurb:
When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, twenty years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed -- before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life.
Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-looking stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a little fun ... just like Dear Old Dad. And all of a sudden, life starts getting very interesting for Fat Charlie.
Because, you see, Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. Some said he could cheat even Death himself.
Returning to the territory he so brilliantly explored in his masterful New York Times bestseller American Gods, the incomparable Neil Gaiman offers up a work of dazzling ingenuity, a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth that is at once startling, terrifying, exhilarating, and fiercely funny -- a true wonder of a novel that confirms Stephen King's glowing assessment of the author as "a treasure house of story, and we are lucky to have him."
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