Prescott, Tara, ed. Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century: Essays on the Novels, Children's Stories, Online Writings, Comics and Other Works.

Miller, Jennifer L.

Prescott, Tara, ed. Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century: Essays on the Novels, Children's Stories, Online Writings, Comics and Other Works. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2015. 272 pp. Softcover. ISBN 978-0-7864-9477-4. $35.00.

In 2012, Neil Gaiman gave a speech to the graduating class at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, which was subsequently printed as a stand-alone work, "Make Good Art." In this speech he says,

Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil or it's all been done before? Make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that doesn't matter. Do what only you do best. Make good art. (117)

References to this speech appear frequently throughout Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century, an essay collection that examines Gaiman's works starting with American Gods (2001) and ending with Sandman: Overture (2014). The frequent invocation of Gaiman's 2012 speech, both in the acknowledgements and introduction to the collection as well as throughout the essays themselves, speaks not only to the thematic importance of imagination and creativity throughout Gaiman's recent works, but also to the myriad ways in which readers and scholars see good art taking shape in them.

Tara Prescott arranges the essays in her volume chronologically, grouping them based on which of Gaiman's works they address. The collection begins with two essays on American Gods. In the first, Jenn Anya Prosser compares American Gods to Homer's Odyssey, while in the second, Michael B. Key examines the anxiety over shifting cultural centers exemplified by Gaiman's novel. The collection also covers The Wolves in the Walls (2003) and Blueberry Girl (2009), Anansi Boys (2005), The Graveyard Book (2008), "Nightmare in Silver" (2013) from Doctor Who, The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013), A Calendar of Tales (2013), and finally, Sandman: Overture. Most of the essays approach Gaiman's work using a scholarly framework, though the collection also includes an interview with J. H. Williams III (the artist who illustrated Sandman: Overture) as well as a more personal, reflective essay by Nadia Eshraghi, a new reader of the Sandman series.

Although the overall organization of Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century is based on the publication date of specific works rather than on their themes, there are several key issues explored in multiple essays that give the collection an overall sense of unity and cohesion. Several authors address Gaiman's use and adaptation of source material, including Prosser's argument that American Gods presents an updated, Americanized version of the pantheon of gods found in The Odyssey; Danielle Russell's analysis of the similar importance of oral culture in both Zora Neal Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Anansi Boys; Jennifer McStotts's exploration of the connections between The Graveyard Book and Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book; and Tom Zladinger's look at the wide variety of musical influences found in the Sandman series.

A number of essays also discuss feminism and the representation of women, which is not surprising, considering that Prescott previously edited Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman (2012). For example, Renata Lucena Dalmaso's essay, "Toward a Feminist Reading of Gaiman's Picture Books," connects The Wolves in the Walls with Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and argues that the illustrations in The Blueberry Girl complicate the traditional representation of woman as maiden/mother/crone. Both Monica Miller and Courtney McLandis tackle this tripartite representation of women as well, analyzing the figures of the three Hempstock women in The Ocean at the End of the Lane. McLandis's essay, "'The essence of grandmotherliness': Ideal Motherhood and Threatening Female Sexuality," stands out here as the rare essay that critiques Gaiman's work, arguing that in The Ocean at the End of the Lane, "Gaiman engages in a rework of Freud's Madonna-whore dichotomy that only allows female sexuality to exist as the unnatural threat" (176). This more critical approach is rather refreshing, given the unmitigated enthusiasm that many fans and scholars alike share for all of Gaiman's work (seemingly without exception), and adds depth and credibility to the collection as a whole.

In her introduction to the work, Prescott seems most enthusiastic about the section on Sandman: Overture, calling it "the most exciting Gaiman release so far" (7), particularly because of John Bultena's "exclusive interview" with J. H. Williams III, "Aperture for a Storyteller." Although this interview certainly provides an intriguing look at both Gaiman's work on Sandman and Williams's own creative influences, the strongest section of the collection is actually the one on The Ocean at the End of the Lane. This section offers the most consistently interesting, rigorous, and clearly argued essays, perhaps because the novel has been out long enough to allow time for genuine scholarly inquiry but also short enough that there are still unexplored areas of criticism. In addition to Miller's and McLandis's treatments of feminist themes in this novel, this section of Prescott's collection features several essays that touch on the key themes of childhood and memory seen in The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Among these are Rebecca Long's work on memory and the construction of childhood, Andrew Eichel's essay about the Augustinian connection between memory and place, and Yaeri Kim's exploration of Freud's "Uncanny." The variety of critical approaches used to analyze Gaiman's work is an asset to the collection as a whole, and speaks to the wide range of ideas and themes that are woven together in Gaiman's work.

Unfortunately, not all the essays in Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century have the same clarity of argument and precision of thinking that is found in the section on The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Several of the essays feature plot summary quite heavily rather than clear analysis, while other essays, particularly those analyzing Gaiman's source material, offer up points of comparison without any real argument beyond simply making the comparison. And although some of the differences in the length, format, and purpose of the essays are clearly intentional, the unevenness in the rigor of argument detracts from the overall quality of Prescott's collection.

In spite of these weaker contributions, however, Neil Gaiman in the 21st Century will interest both fans and scholars of Gaiman's work because of the variety of texts it includes. Perhaps the biggest strength of Prescott's collection is her emphasis on the wide range of media used by Gaiman in his creative endeavors. Starting with her description of the 2014 video game Wayward Manor in the introduction to the volume, Prescott's incorporation of different types of writing--scholarly essay, interview, and personal essay--along with her inclusion of articles on digital/multimedia texts such as A Calendar of Tales in addition to more traditionally structured novels, underscores how Gaiman's work in the twenty-first century is not easy to pigeonhole. The photograph of her own artwork in the introduction visually represents the "mixed media" nature of the essay collection, further emphasizing the varied nature of Gaiman's work.

Although Prescott offers the caveat that "it is hard to gain a full perspective on a body of work that is ongoing" (7), the very format of Prescott's collection creates an image of Neil Gaiman that is likely to endure--that of an artist who is not afraid to experiment with both new and old forms, all for the sake of "mak[ing] good art."