Clippings…
Allen, Moira. “Dispatches”. The Writer, March 2002, pg 10.
…When Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods, moved from England to America, he sought “one of those things only America can provide,” he tells January Magazine-an “Addams Family house.” And he found one, near his wife’s family in Minneapolis, complete “with the big pointy tower and wrap-around porch.” It even has a reputation for being haunted:
“Somebody once told me that someone had actually hung themselves in the tower, but I’ve never been able to find anything about that anywhere else, so I suspect they probably didn’t.” Still, children refuse to come near the house on Halloween, even though the Gaimans stock up with candy.
Finding an Addams Family house was just part of Gaiman’s process of learning to understand America and Americans. “It was what American Gods came from: discovering that America was a much more complex place than I thought. … You wind up having to understand history and then come forward, to figure out who came where and what they did and what was going on economically and what the cultural patterns were. … Which again was stuff that I tried to get into the novel.”
As for writing in general, Gaiman says he’s long since learned not to go for the cash. “Go for the [project] that seems interesting, because, even if it all falls apart, you’ve got something interesting out of it. Whereas, the other way, you normally wind up getting absolutely nothing out of it.”…
Clippings of note:
Some general info that might be of interest: