Anansi Boys and Mirrormask

October 4, 2005
Neil Gaiman

Neil will be talking about his new book, Anansi Boys, and his new movie, Mirrormask.

Anansi Boys is Gaiman’s latest novel and the follow up to American Gods. Readers across America and around the world were first introduced to Mr. Nancy (“Anansi”), the spider god, in American Gods. Anansi Boys tells the story of his two sons, Fat Charlie and Spider.

Gaiman notes, “It’s a scary, funny sort of story, which isn’t exactly a thriller, and isn’t really horror, and doesn’t quite qualify as a ghost story (although it has at least one ghost in it), or a romantic comedy (although there are several romances in there, and it’s certainly a comedy, except the scary bits). If you have to classify it, it’s probably a magical-horror-thriller-ghost-romantic-comedy-family epic, although that leaves out the detective bits and much of the food.” (After all, there is a very interesting lime.)

Mirrormask is directed by famed illustrator/artist Dave McKean and written by Neil Gaiman. Produced by the Jim Henson Company, Mirrormask blends live action with digital animation. The film premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Mirrormask opens on Friday, September 30, 2005.

Mirrormask tells the story of Helena, a fifteen-year-old girl working for her family circus, who wishes – quite ironically – that she could run away from the circus and join real life. But such is not to be the case, as she finds herself on a strange journey into the Dark Lands, a fantastic landscape filled with giants, monkeybirds and dangerous sphinxes. On her quest to return home, Helena searches for the Mirrormask, an object of enormous power, which is her only hope of escaping the Dark Lands.

In 1986, McKean met Gaiman and the pair collaborated on a short graphic novel of disturbing childhood memories, Violent Cases, which garnered instant critical acclaim. Since then, the pair has worked together on numerous award-winning comic books, graphic novels and children’s books.

Speaker Details

A professional writer for more than twenty years, Neil Gaiman has been one of the top writers in modern comics, and is now a bestselling novelist. His work has appeared in translation in more than nineteen countries, and nearly all of his novels, graphic and otherwise, have been optioned for films. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers.Gaiman is the creator / writer of the TV Series / novel / illustrated prose novel / comic / graphic novel / movie script / children’s book Sandman, Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, The Wolves in the Walls, Anansi Boys, and MirrorMask. He has won an extensive list of impressive awards in all of the genres in which he has worked. He has also been short-listed for an even longer list of impressive awards. Much of his work has spent quite a bit of time on multiple bestseller lists of magazines and newspapers.http://www.neilgaiman.com/