American Gods characters

Also known as Mike Ainsel

Appears from the start

A big, quiet, watchful man nearing the end of a prison sentence for assault. Days before his release he learns that his wife has been killed in a car crash, leaving him with nothing to go home to. Guarded and slow to anger, he keeps his thoughts to himself, does coin tricks to pass the time, and mostly wants a quiet life. Adrift after prison, he accepts a job as bodyguard and driver for a strange older man he meets on his way home, and is pulled into a hidden world he does not yet understand.

Appears from the start

A charming, disreputable old con man with a glass eye and an unnerving knack for knowing a great deal about Shadow before they ever meet. He offers Shadow work as a bodyguard and errand man, hinting at business that is stranger and older than ordinary swindles. Genial, grandiose, and always working an angle, he travels the country meeting a network of odd, faded acquaintances, and clearly has some larger scheme in motion.

Appears from the start

Shadow's wife, whose sudden death in a car accident just before his release drives him out of prison and into the story. Shadow loved her deeply and clung to the thought of her through his imprisonment. Her loss is the wound at the center of his early journey, and the circumstances of her death carry a bitter complication that shadows his grief.

First appears in chapter 2

A tall, belligerent, red-bearded man who drinks hard and claims to be a leprechaun, encountered in a roadside bar. Loud and spoiling for a fight, he shows Shadow a coin trick beyond anything ordinary and presses a magical gold coin on him, a gift that turns out to carry serious and lasting consequences.

First appears in chapter 2

An arrogant, sneering young man, fat and nervous, who travels in a limousine full of flickering screens and reeks of a synthetic newness. He represents the modern powers of computers, data, and the internet, and he accosts Shadow early on with threats and demands, treating Wednesday and his kind as obsolete. He is one of the new forces arrayed against the old.

First appears in chapter 5

A grim, aging Slavic immigrant living in a shabby Chicago apartment with his sisters, the Zorya. Once a killer of cattle in the stockyards, he still keeps the sledgehammer of his old trade and speaks of a darker, godlier past. Sour and fatalistic, he plays checkers with Shadow and strikes a grim wager over the young man's head, but Wednesday needs him for the gathering to come.

First appears in chapter 6

A polished, shape-shifting presence who speaks to Shadow out of television screens, wearing the faces of old sitcom and talk-show stars. She embodies the modern power of broadcast and celebrity, the thing millions give their attention and devotion to every day. Smooth and seductive, she tries to win Shadow over to the side of the new powers.

Also known as Anansi

First appears in chapter 7

A dapper, sharp-tongued old man with a gift for stories and a sly sense of humor, one of the old gods Wednesday gathers. Behind the elderly, joking exterior is the ancient trickster spider of West African and Caribbean tale. Quick, wily, and warmer than most of the company, he becomes a companion to Shadow.

First appears in chapter 7

A precise, scholarly undertaker who runs a funeral home in a faded river town with his partner Mr. Jacquel, and who fills notebooks with the histories of forgotten immigrants and their gods. Courtly and old-fashioned, he offers Shadow shelter among the dead. He and his partner are ancient Egyptian powers keeping to quiet work in a country that has largely forgotten them.

First appears in chapter 8

The smooth, faceless, coordinating leader of the new gods, a bland and reasonable-sounding man who directs the modern powers moving against Wednesday's coalition. Where the Technical Boy is petulant and Media seductive, Mr. World is the calm strategist, seemingly the most dangerous of the opposition, and the driving intelligence behind the coming war.

First appears in chapter 10

A beloved old man in the quiet northern town of Lakeside, a tireless teller of tall tales and organizer of the town's traditions, including a winter contest built around a car left out on the frozen lake. Warm, grandfatherly, and seemingly everyone's friend, he takes a kindly interest in the newcomer Shadow while he hides there.