Re: Shadow's grief and shock. Fair point; I will keep that in mind if I reread. However, while that may explain his passivity during the novel, it does not explain all my trouble connecting to him, because I still found him opaque and hard to connect to in the short story set in Scotland -- and I think it is clear that by that point he's no longer overwhelmed.

Oh well, nobody ever said every book and character would work for every reader!