Introduction

Now in Paperback During one month in the autumn of election year 2000, scores of movie-business strivers are focused on one goal: getting a piece of an elusive, but surely huge, television saga. The one that opens with Huns sweeping through Mongolia and closes with a Mormon diviner in the Las Vegas desert; the sure-to-please-everyone multigenerational TV miniseries about diviners, those miracle workers who bring water to perpetually thirsty (and hungry and love-starved) humankind.

Among the wannabes: Vanessa Meandro, hot-tempered head of Means of Production, and indie film company; her harried and varied staff; a Sikh cab driver, promoted to the office of theory and practice of TV; a bipolar bicycle messenger, who makes a fateful mis-delivery; two celebrity publicists, the Vanderbilt girls; a thriller writer who gives Botox parties; the daughter of a L.A. big-shot, who is hired to fetch Vanessas Krispy Kremes and more; a word man who coined the phrase inspired by a true story; and a supreme court justice who wants to write the script. A few true artists surface in the course of Moodys rollicking but intricately woven novel, and real emotion eventually blossoms for most of Vanessas staff at Means of Production, even herself.

The Diviners is a cautionary tale about pointless ambition; a richly detailed look at the interlocking worlds of money, politics, addiction, sex, work, and family in modern America; and a masterpiece of comedy that will bring Rick Moody to still higher levels of appreciation.

"A spirited, side-splitting romp through the scorpion-ridden wastes of U.S. showbiz cool, hip and wickedly funny. A prodigiously talented writer, Moody offers a multitude of pleasures. His edgy prose is superb; his comedic talent raises, at a bare minimum, a giggle a page; his immersion in popular culture never compromises an acute, acerbic intelligence."--Globe and Mail (reviewed by Guy Vanderhaeghe)

"A hugely entertaining social satire, The Diviners represents a real change for the writer, at least in tonethough he wasnt making any special effort to be more accessible, he has done just that.The book has such a lyrical, musical quality that its like an easy-to-read Finnegans Wake."--Calgary Herald.

"A rollicking novel about the interlocking worlds of entertainment, money and politics.The cast is huge and colourful, and the summing-up of a confused era is reminiscent of Jonathan Franzens The Corrections."--Vancouver Sun

Editorial Review

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Excerpt

1

Rosa Elisabetta Meandro, in insubstantial light, entrails in flames. Rosa Elisabetta of the hammertoe, Rosa Elisabetta of the corns. Rosa Elisabetta of the afflictions. She has hinted about the nature of her sufferings to certain persons up the block, certain persons on Eleventh Street, Brooklyn. Emilia, whose son sells the raviolis, for example. She has whispered to Emilia about the colitis. She has indicated problems relating to her gallbladder. Stones. Also headaches. These headaches begin with visitations, with rainbows, celestial light, an inability to remember numbers. Rosa Elisabetta might smell the overpowering perfume of cocktail onions, after which there is Technicolor. Two or three days sick in bed, lower than a dog is low. If she's enumerating the complaints for Emilia, there is the colitis, there are the corns, there is the pancreas, there are the headaches. At least four things. Gas, though it's not proper to talk about it. On nights when the garlic has not been properly saut?ed according to the cuisine of her ancestral homeland,Tuscany, then there is also the gas. Perhaps it is correct to include this in the list of complaints, assembled at 6:13AM, as she burrows down further into bedcovers, into the folds of her four-poster. She doesn't know how much longer she can resist the cramps, the pressurized evacuation of her last meal and everything else eaten in the past twenty-four hours, everything, at least, that has not already been evacuated. Best to be pleasant about it; this is what Emilia said when Rosa Elisabetta Meandro was telling her about the scabs. There are these scabs that don't heal; when she gets a cut, saws into herself accidentally in the kitchen, dicing vegetables, there is the mineralization of the cut. The cut doesn't heal, not as it should. What's that all about? She was also going to tell Emilia about the halitosis, that day, which she can smell by cupping her hands and attempting to exhale and inhale quickly, while lying in the four-poster. It is no longer the smell of the garlic saut?ed, nor is it the smell of the cocktail onions, nor is it the smell of port wine, nor is it stewed peppers. It's some new smell, and this is what Rosa was trying to tell Emilia the other day, no doubt about it. The look in the eyes of Emilia was a look of pity, which is a look that makes Rosa Elisabetta Meandro irritable, though she tries to be pleasant, and this righteous anger, even in the dawn light ebbing into the garden apartment through the windows facing the street, is a refreshing sentiment, a motivator, as she breathes out cupping her hands. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

From the Publisher:

1. The Diviners takes place during the 2000 presidential election and its aftermath. What does The Diviners tell us about the America of that time? Do you think the characters would have behaved differently had the novel taken place one year after, rather than one year before, September 11, 2001?


2. How does Vanessa Meandro's relationship with her mother contribute to your opinion of Vanessa? Do you think Vanessa is starving for love or unable to love at the beginning of The Diviners?


3. Do you think Ranjeet Singh, the Sikh cab driver, merited the opportunity to join an industry in which he had no previous experience? Was his enthusiasm for American movies sufficient qualification?


4. What aspects of modern America did The Diviners help you to know better than you did? Independent filmmaking? Botox parties? Environmental extremists? Yoga classes? Office politics?


5. Rick Moody has said that he loves Tyrone.Who was the most appealing or interesting character to you? Why?


6.How do Samantha Lee and Tyrone and Annabel Duffy illuminate the challenges facing artists in contemporary society? How has the writer become, like Len Wilkinson, a mere "word man" or, as in the case of the author of the script for the miniseries of The Diviners, nonexistent?


7. Both Dante's Purgatorio and The Diviners comprise thirtythree chapters. Do you think that this has something to do with the movement of Rick Moody's novel from hellish latitudes to more hopeful circumstances for the various characters?


8. What do the various audience reactions to the TV serial The Werewolves of Fairfield County tell us about the variety of responses one story can elicit?


9. In what ways is The Diviners an epic rather than a domestic novel?


10. When Vanessa decides to help the illegal Mexican migrants in the desert, were you surprised? What personal transformations — either in Vanessa's life or in the lives of the other characters — meant the most to you?


11. In the interview with Rick Moody that is included in this reading group guide, he says that "much of the novel is about various kinds of thirst." Which of his characters do you think are most able to quench their thirsts, satisfy their needs, in the end?

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