Gaiman
returns to storytelling with an ordinary man named Fat Charlie that’s
not-so-ordinary. His dad is none other than the spider-god Anansi who spins
tales and weaves fanciful deception, interposing the surreal onto our
coffee-and-orange juice lives.
Fat Charlie Nancy and his fiancée Rosie open the novel
quietly; Charlie struggles to deal with the news of his father’s death. Gaiman
takes on the character’s struggle, by advancing him (Charlie) from being
completely oblivious to the supernatural, to somewhat comfortable in order to
deal with his father’s true lineage, some meddlesome old women, and his magical
brother, Spider. The pacing of the novel suffers as you are drawn slowly into
Charlie’s awakening. As his character becomes more three-dimensional, some of
the other characters, like Rosie, are flat and stale as a result. The peak of
this story is soft and unassuming— Charlie makes a desperate pact with a
supernatural creature (the Bird-Woman) in order to get rid of his brother,
Spider, who’s made a mess of things in his real, working man’s life. From that
point on, the novel spirals deliciously into something warm, tangible and
inviting. The anchors to reality blur as the novel speeds up, and the prose
becomes more imaginative, more organic. Police investigations, wacked out
birds, bad employers, fangs, and an old, spinster mother all play out within
the dreamy tale. The resolution is not as predictable as you’d think; the
characters do what they are supposed to do as gods and mortals.
Fat Charlie’s struggles against his brother feel more
like playground fun or childhood envy than they do of a grown man. When things
go bad (and yes, they do) it seems as if that’s all just part of Anansi’s
storytelling—no matter how bad it gets there’s always something that will set
you free.