Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don't-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.

The best thing - in Shadow's opinion, perhaps the only good thing - about being in prison was a feeling of relief. The feeling that he'd plunged as low as he could plunge and he'd hit bottom. He didn't worry that the man was going to get him, because the man had got him. He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, because yesterday had brought it.

After his release from prison, Shadow meets a strange man, who calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and whom he eventually agrees to work for. As it turns out, Wednesday is not just a strange man, but an ancient European god, who has been carried over to America by the Vikings. Like all immigrant Gods, he has found America to be a bad place: After a generation or two, the number of faithful dwindles and the immortals' power and glory rapidly fades away. Wednesday is currently on a crusade to round up other ancient deities and lead them into a war against the modern American idols, such as the Internet, Mass Media, the Car, or the Credit Card.

The book alternates between three modes: We get to follow Shadow in how he deals with a chain of supernatural events while travelling across the United States, we get to follow him behind the scenes in a series of dream sequences (that part did not really work for me), and we get to see a number of vignettes where Gods struggle with their place in modern life. Gaiman obviously did a lot of research into mythological characters, but he also shows a lot of restraint in using these references in that he does not hit you over the head with explicit explanations or introductions. Instead, the reader is encouraged to gather the background information by himself.