This quietly profound novel starts with a character named Shadow, who is preparing to resume his life after a stint in prison. But the life he planned to return to evaporates shortly before his release.

His questions about what to do next are answered by a craggy old grifter named Mr. Wednesday, who hires Shadow for unspecified assistance. As they travel together across the American landscape, Shadow comes to understand that his employer is an American version of an ancient god, weakened across the centuries by waning belief and neglect.

Interspersed in the main narrative are stories of many gods like Wednesday, constellations of belief who emigrated to America along with the people who worshiped them, and the ongoing decline in their fortunes as times have changed and human attentions have shifted.

Though they may be down, these gods are not out. As the plot unfolds, we learn that the gods spawned by modern human worship - like Media and Technology - are preparing for war with the old gods, hoping to eliminate what challenge they still present for limited mercurial human attentions.

Shadow spends much of this book as an obedient observer to this unfolding. Despite that, his character is an oddly compelling one. He is a very likeable big lug, and Gaiman's prose carries us smoothly across a landscape that is shifting beneath his - and our - feet. Though the subtleties of Gaimen's many insights about the human condition and the nature of belief get a bit more heavy-handed towards the end, the book is highly readable throughout. It is one of the more thought-provoking and satisfying novels I've read in a long time.

Favorite line: "The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies."