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Books › Night Life of the Gods (Annotated)

Cover of Night Life of the Gods (Annotated)

Night Life of the Gods (Annotated)

Thorne Smith

530 pages

A madcap, mythological romp where ancient gods bring boisterous chaos to Prohibition-era New York.

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What it feels like

Reading this book feels like uncorking a bottle of pure, chaotic mischief. The pace is brisk and boisterous, propelled by a devilish sense of humor that delights in upending ultrarespectable society. It immerses the reader in a whimsical, explosive atmosphere where the boundaries between science, magic, and mythology gleefully collapse. The prose is playful and absurd, painting vivid pictures of evil-smelling vapors and ancient deities running amok in Prohibition-era New York. The emotional arc swells from eccentric, isolated tinkering into a full-blown, city-wide revelry of mythological proportions. It is a perfect match for readers who crave irreverent, madcap fantasy and love watching stuffy societal norms get gleefully dismantled by literal gods of chaos.

Mood
  • mischievous
  • boisterous
  • whimsical
  • chaotic
Tone
  • irreverent
  • humorous
  • devilish
  • playful
Pace
brisk
Themes
rebellion against respectability · mythological mischief · chaotic experimentation · culture clash
The writing
Devilish and delightful, leaning into comedic absurdity and vivid, chaotic imagery.
The arc
Moves from eccentric, isolated tinkering to explosive, city-wide mythological revelry.
Who it's for
Readers who love classic, madcap comedic fantasy and the absurd collision of ancient mythology with modern society.
Content notes
  • explosions
  • alcohol references

About the book

Hunter Hawk has a knack for annoying his ultrarespectable relatives. He likes to experiment and he particularly likes to experiment with explosives. His garage-cum-laboratory is a veritable minefield, replete with evil-smelling clouds of vapor through which various bits of wreckage and mysteriously bubbling test tubes are occasionally visible. With the help of Megaera, a fetching nine-hundred-year-old lady leprechaun he meets one night in the woods, he masters the art (if not the timing) of transforming statues into people. And when he practices his new witchery in the stately halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Artsetting Bacchus, Mercury, Neptune, Diana, Hebe, Apollo, and Perseus loose on the unsuspecting citizenry of Prohibition-era New York-the stage is set for Thorne Smith at his most devilish and delightful.

Description from Open Library.

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