Discussing American Gods and my take aways

Reading improves your writing, right? Let's put that to the test once again!

Hello all! Here we are again, and today we’re talking more growth as a writer. For those of you new around here, let me explain what this is…

There are some books that have already been established. They are titans of their genre. Books like these have no need to be reviewed. They’ve already withstood reviews in their own time. Instead - whether I enjoy these books or not - I want to read older established books and discuss what I as a writer have taken away from them. I already did this once before with Red Mars and now here we are discussing Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. This little intermittent post is part of me diversifying my substack page. We have all kinds of stuff over here at The Trials of Astra after all, and this is just another fun part of the process!

So, let’s talk about it then! American Gods is a fascinating read to say the least. To give a quick synopsis: Shadow is an ex con hired by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday to journey with him across the country. Along the way, Shadow meets creatures and beings of myth and legend and discovers that maybe, just maybe, the world isn’t as simple as he thought. There’s a storm on the horizon, and Shadow just found himself in the middle of it all… 

There may be some slight spoilers abound from here on out so if you haven’t read it yet, be mindful!

Now to be clear, I read the ten year anniversary author’s edition. According to the introduction, this was the version as Gaiman wanted it written, and from my understanding there are quite a few different versions so if there’s any discrepancies between what I say here and what you experienced, that may be why. OR I’m misremembering which hey… that could happen. I finished this book 2 weeks ago after all. 

And lastly, let me lay out the three things I’m going to discuss here: Defining a villain, Aging, and Audience. Don’t get me wrong, if I were doing a true review there is a lot I could say, but that’s not really the point of this. People have already made up their mind on a book like this a long time ago. If you want to see me do a review, have a look at the notes I post to substack as I recently did a review on Iron Widow - a much newer book - for example. This is about taking an older, well known, successful piece of fiction and seeing just what I as a writer can take away from it. So let’s get into this…

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Defining a Villain 

Okay, so you have a bad guy. I mean, he’s a really bad guy. He’s a murderer, he kicks puppies, he takes candy from babies he… is a pedophile? Well hold on there, let’s talk about this for a second, because wow, I did not see that coming.

Our beloved Mr. Wednesday (Odin, of course), isn’t the apparent villain at first, but it is very clear early on that he isn’t exactly a good guy. He’s Shadow’s mysterious benefactor. At first he seems to be a bit on the gross old man side of things. Maybe he read Asimov’s The Sensuous Dirty Old Man book, who could say? But he’s actually a sharp, quick, conman. He’s kind of a jerk, but he’s clever enough to talk himself out of it. He’s never fully straight with anyone, and that’s an important part of his character.

Gaiman does damn near everything in his power to tell us early on that Wednesday is not the good guy. We can choose to listen or choose not to. The frustrating thing (and I’ll try to keep my opinions to myself in that regard other than this) is that Shadow is such a clueless surrogate for the reader that he doesn’t call out any of Wednesday’s behavior UNTIL he begins to flirt with an underage girl. This is the moment that Shadow finally steps up and says it isn’t okay. He stands up to his boss, and what does Wednesday say? That age never really mattered to him.

Wow. Absolutely wow. That was the scene that for me was the moment where it was concrete that Wednesday wasn’t the hero, wasn’t to be sympathized with. Think of it this way: When establishing a villain, we have to establish where the writer would draw the line. I could say that lying to someone is wrong, therefore a lie is enough to imply that someone isn’t great. Instead of laying a single snare for you to realize that Wednesday is the ultimate villain, Gaiman leads you along a path of snares and bear traps. Wednesday lies, steals, manipulates, murders, tricks, womanizes, and worse. All in the name of his own selfish game. Although there are so many reprehensible things done by Wednesday, he’s still portrayed as a positive character at first and so it might conflict with your view as the reader. That left me originally thinking ‘Oh, maybe this says more about what the author considers crossing a line than me.’ So maybe Wednesday is supposed to be a redeemable gross old man. No, no, Gaiman was just laying the thick trap that he is the villain.

So what exactly does this mean to me as a writer? Here’s what I think: As a writer, we must be able to understand what crosses the line of a villain. What makes a bad guy the bad guy? That depends on the story I suppose, but if your hero starts committing murders left and right, people may start to question if they’re good or not. On the contrary, action heroes even today murder in droves and they’re still heroes right? So where’s the line? 

The line is what we write. We write the line to define good and evil in the text. Mr. Wednesday seems good because there’s no push back to his behavior along the way, but Gaiman draws the line for Wednesday the moment Shadow starts to push back. That was the line that defined that Wednesday was the antagonist. I’m not trying to get into real world moral implications and the like just to be clear. Instead I want to consider that we as writers draw the line of good versus bad in our work by how the world around a villain reacts to a villainous action. That isn’t to say that we as readers can’t disagree or find a protagonist’s behavior immoral or reprehensible BUT it does mean that the story may not be sculpted for that to be a part of it. I actually think Iron Widow does a good job at this as well, but that's not the book we’re here to talk about today. 

So moving forward, I want to focus on the external reactions to reprehensible actions in a story as an important part of framing the narrative! Sort of like the thing we often see with superhero media where the good guys destroy property and do a lot of destructive things in the name of saving the day. Even if they’re doing something good, they’re a villain to someone out there. And that’s an interesting thing to explore, but my point is that villainy is seen through the framing around a character. I think people often do this in the real world as well, but again, this isn’t really the place to get into that.

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Aging

Doesn’t this sound vague? Let’s make it more clear. The setting you place your book in is a moment in time, and as we move further from that time, that distance will reframe your story. This sounds obvious, but it wasn’t entirely obvious to me until I read this book. Let me use myself as an example.

American Gods was published in 2001. In 2001, I was a child. I won’t divulge exactly how old, but let’s just say I hadn’t been talking for too long at that point, but I do still remember that time in my life. So a story set in 2001 has a very weird feeling to me. It feels nostalgic, it feels like childhood. When I picture the country towns and road trips across the US in American Gods, I picture my home town, or highways I remember seeing from the backseat of my parent’s car. Descriptions of things from my childhood evoked completely different emotions than I’m willing to bet they would’ve for someone in their 20s in 2001.

Better yet, what about someone who wasn’t even alive? I know it’s weird to think about, but there are many adults out there born AFTER 2001. Scary right? Well, they exist and they didn’t experience the world as Gaiman saw it as he wrote American Gods. To them I imagine this must be like reading about time before time. I wonder if they picture the story in sepia? Let’s look further back! I read Les Mis when I was 22. I pictured it very differently as a 22 year old in America than what I bet Victor Hugo’s target audience did when he wrote it as a 60 year old French man in 1862.

My point here? Books age. And as that book ages, the audience is going to perceive the book differently. We can’t do anything about that as writers I suppose, but maybe acknowledging it is enough to recognize some important things. Will references to old cartoons hold up? What about food or drinks? Gaiman makes a point of describing the cars they take across the country or describing locations. Those locations aren’t the same anymore. Those kinds of cars have had newer models come out since then. Time moves on and we need to be aware that what the audience sees in their minds deviates further and further from the writer's intentions as the story ages. Politics change, cultures change, everything changes. No book stays the same. 

Maybe we as writers can ask ourselves then, what in our books will hold up to that? And does it matter if it doesn’t? We can’t predict how a story will be received by people years later. I recall an anecdote where Ray Bradbury was describing what Fahrenheit 451 meant, and a college student stood up to correct him and tell him what it really meant (is this a real anecdote? I just remember my english teacher talking about it in highschool). Are either of them right or wrong? Well, no. Stories are subjective and as we grow further from publication, the document ages and changes as the world does around it.

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Audience

Now here’s a question I hear a lot of people asking. Agents want to know it. Readers want to know if they fit. Hell, even the readers themselves want to know: Who is your audience? The more I try to write, the more this question nags at me. On a personal note, I don’t really know what my audience is. If you ever figure that out, get back to me. So who was Gaiman’s audience when he wrote American Gods? That’s an interesting thing to think about.

In my opinion, this book is a love letter to the immigrant experience. Sometimes it’s ugly. Sometimes it's beautiful. Regardless of which side of the coin or where along the spectrum you find yourself, this story wants you to see some of your reflection in its story. That seems clear to me. The subchapters called Coming to America  in which it shows how different people came to the US throughout history shows the struggle of coming to the US. Gaiman himself is an immigrant from the UK and he appears to be making a genuine attempt at including a lot of different stories. Though some of the stories are a little stereotypical, others are fascinating and diverse. 

But I’m certainly not an immigrant and I’m sure many other readers weren’t either. Are we still part of the audience? 

Yes. And let me tell you why. Your target audience isn’t your only audience. In fact, sometimes it isn’t even remotely the audience you end up with. Sometimes that can be good too as a reader because then we receive perspectives we never would have otherwise. That’s why I think books like The Color Purple are so important for young people to read in highschool. I don’t think some teen boy in 2024 was ever the target audience for that book and yet, he could still learn a lot from experiencing that book. 

Do I know what the difficult immigrant experience is like in the US? Absolutely not, and I never will. But can I develop empathy and understanding by reading a book where that’s the focus and potentially the audience? Absolutely I can and that’s a beautiful thing. 

So as a writer, what does that mean? I think it means that I can write with an audience in mind, but that doesn’t have to be my only audience. I think in a way it’s silly to think you know what your audience is when you write. You might say ‘people who like this book will like my book,’ but that doesn’t mean those are the only people. It almost feels like a lie when a publishing agent asks who your audience is, because I don’t know that yet. I might say that I think it will be [insert demographic], but am I right? Gosh, I don’t know. Let’s wait and see who actually reads this. 

My audience is… my audience. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you like other than what I write, and unless you want to share that, it really isn’t my business. So all this is to say that I think we shouldn’t worry so much about targeting an audience. Rather, let those who are interested enjoy it. Maybe they’ll learn something if their perspective is different. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t take your audience into consideration - be mindful of the people who engage with you, especially on websites, blogs, and the likes - but I do think who makes up your audience is the end all be all. I recall thinking as I read American Gods, 'I don't know if I’m the target audience, but I’m enjoying this book anyways, so I don’t really care.’ I for one would be happy if someone felt that way about my own work.

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Concluding thoughts

With these three concepts in mind, I feel a little better equipped to move forward in writing. Some of this is a little abstract or odd, but I do think these concepts are both interesting to consider and can be significant to writing a book. They may not all be actionable ideas, but instead they may be things that I personally think may be helpful to be mindful of.

So, did I enjoy my time with American Gods? Mostly, though I must say that there were a lot of people who said they thought I’d love this book and after reading it, that makes me wonder: What’s that say about me? Alas, this isn’t the place for such questions. Instead, I’ll take my lessons, appreciate the story as I experienced it, and move on to the next one! 

What am I reading now? Well, I’m currently reading The Dead Take the A-Train and that will more than likely get a notes review, though I’m not sure what story I’ll write some lessons about next. Stay tuned next week for a uh… story? Or maybe a sci-fi today chat (I’ve got a fun one in mind for this). I haven’t actually decided which I’m going to do yet. Whichever it may be - stay tuned!

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Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you next week!