Fat Charlie Nancy is not actually fat. He was fat once but he is definitely not fat now. No, right now Fat Charlie Nancy is angry, confused and more than a little scared - right now his life is spinning out of control, and it is all his dad's fault.
If his rotter of an estranged father hadn't dropped dead at a karaoke night, Charlie would still be blissfully unaware that his dad was Anansi the spider god. He would have no idea that he has a brother called Spider, who is also a god. And there would be no chance that said brother would be trying to take over his life, flat and fiancé, or, to make matters worse, be doing a much better job of it than him. Desperate to reclaim his life, Charlie enlists the help of four more-than-slightly eccentric old ladies and their unique brand of voodoo - and between them they unleash a bitter and twisted force to get rid of Spider. But as darkness descends and badness begins is Fat Charlie Nancy going to get his life back in one piece or is he about to enter a whole netherworld of pain?
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[It begins, as most things begin, with a song. In the beginning after all, were the words, and they came with a tune. That was how the world was made, how the void was divided, how the lands and the stars and the dreams and the little gods and the animals, how all of them came into the world.]***
(Review Books, 11 November 2010, bought from Amazon)
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Anansi Boys is a good read but not exactly what I was expecting.
I loved the premise of the book, discovering your wastrel of a father is a God and you have a brother you don't remember who's also a God. I thought this was original.
I loved reading about Charlie's life when Spider invades it. There are some really funny moments when Spider swans in and just takes over, seducing Charlie's fiancée, pretending to be Charlie at work and uncovering some dodgy going's on and generally just getting in the way.
Charlie finds Spider threatening and wants him to go away. However, it's at this point when things really get out of control. I really enjoyed the unexpected twists and turns. The book starts to get quite dark which I wasn't expecting at all.
