Did you like the modern-fantasy storytelling? In short, just read Anansi Boys. It's a shorter, better, more-focused version of this one with more humor, better characters, a tighter story, and a lot of heart. It's a better book by a more-experienced writer.
Did you want more sersious examinations of America and the mythology surrounding the American experience, plus the fictional examination of various modern "gods?" Check out DC Vertigo's Uncle Sam, a truly great comic about the truth, lies, and promise of America, propped up by smart writing, an ultimately optimistic story, and the beautiful artwork of Alex Ross.
I only have one problem with your opinion: The gods are predisposed to make biased statements about America because that's where they were made, and it shows how full of themselves they are for it. That you would mistake their shallow profoundness for stuff the writer genuinely believes is confusing to me.
He later underscores it by commenting on how all the \"new gods\" are terrified of being swept away by \"the next big thing.\"
And, frankly, considering how much of the book is just wandering around listening to the ramblings of the various gods, we\'ve got to assume at least some of their statements are meant to be taken at face value, or they\'re just padding, given how superfluous most of them are to the overall plot.
While I stand by the overall criticism of the paragraph in question, I\'m going to edit out the stuff about Malian cinema. That\'s just me trying to show off how smart I am while paradoxically cribbing off other, better people\'s work, and as an older and wiser man I regret it.
For the record, I did read Anansi Boys and Uncle Sam, and both were great recommendations. Thanks for those!
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If you haven't read this book since you were a teen, *hoo boy*...
To be blunt, like the angry, nihilistic cinema of David Fincher, this novel has almost certainly not aged as well as your teenage self believed it would. It is not a good book. It has good *ideas*, but it undermines them all through poor execution and pretentiousness.
First, the plot is a bloody mess. You've got Shadow on a road trip to put together a Justice League of old gods to fight the new, only now he's in a small town that's just a little too perfect, only now his patron is dead and the plot twists are starting. These are all good ideas for stories, but they're flung together in a hap-hazard, slipshod fashion, and almost none of them are really as developed as they deserve.
The central cast are all flat and dull, with the sole exceptions of Anansi and Chernobog. Wednesday never develops beyond "vaguely slimy conman," Sam is every annoying college girl with a shallow sense of spirituality that she thinks makes her profound you've ever wanted to slap, and Shadow is the cypher-iest cypher who ever cyphered. I get that him being Weak-Willed and easily-led is part of the plot, but it doesn't make him any more compelling as a protagonist.
And the pretentious attempts to say profound things about America and religion are all hilariously wrong-headed. If America is "bad land for gods," why are they doing so much better here than in your native Europe, Gaiman? "No other country wonders what it is?" A ridiculous claim; many young nations from Germany to India have made great art struggling with difficult questions of national identity. The reason the amusement park in the heart of America failed has no mystical answer, it's just out in the middle of nowhere with no easy access. And that speech Sam makes about "what she believes in" is one of the worst pieces of dialogue I've ever read.
Is it all bad? No. The idea of immigrant gods dealing with the same problems as their followers is genuinely inspired, and Shadow's modern-fantasy road trip through various bits of cool and weird Americana can be fun and informative. And I really like the last twist's reworking of the building "older stuff is better" message the book seemed to be building to. None of them quite save the book, but they at least make it readable.
I'll put a few recommendations in the comments, but this is still a novel that squanders its promise.