Anansi Boys

“Anansi Boys” is Gaiman in a lighter key: a comic fantasy about two brothers who only learn of each other after the death of their father, an incarnation of the trickster god Anansi. Its pleasures are the humour and the way the pair work out who they are, more than any grand design. Some readers rank it below his weightier novels, yet it stands on its own and needs no knowledge of “American Gods”.

Worth knowing Fat Charlie Nancy, who is not fat and has spent his life being embarrassed by his father, learns at the funeral that his father was Anansi, the West African spider god who owns all the stories, and that he has a brother called Spider who got all the charm; Spider turns up in London, takes over Charlie’s flat, his job and his fiancée, and getting rid of him means dealing with the older animal gods and with the embezzling theatrical agent Charlie works for. Neil Gaiman published it in 2005; Mr Nancy had appeared in American Gods, but this is a comedy, not a sequel, and it took the Locus Award for best fantasy novel and the Mythopoeic Award. Lighter than anything else he wrote for adults, with a lime that matters.

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