The Diviners
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Lights, camera, action fill Moody's latest
REVIEW BY THANE TIERNEY "The story, it's incredible, it's like this gigantic story, spanning a thousand years." If that sounds like a semi-articulate pitch for a television "event," you're half-right. It's Vanessa Meandro, head of the indie film company Means Of Production, briefing her mom on the plot of "The Diviners," a far-reaching epic that centers on the miraculous individuals throughout history who have slaked the thirsts of the masses, with both water and so much more, if you catch her drift. After all, who would want to watch a miniseries about mere well-diggers? Rick Moody's writing career includes two highly regarded short story collections, four novels and an award-winning memoir entitled The Black Veil. In his latest novel, which shares its title with the aforementioned miniseries, Moody takes a rapier to the intersection of ambition and pop culture, sliding his point in as deftly as a plastic surgeon's Botox injection. Don't be lulled into a reverie by The Diviners' opening, which, in almost chant-like fashion, describes the dawning of day across the planet. The book almost immediately ramps up into hyperdrive, with frenetic dialogue and fast-paced interplay peppered throughout. The breathless five-page pitch Meandro hurtles at the UBC television network VP satisfies in its manic way as much as Lucky's monologue in Waiting for Godot. As for the miniseries itself? Caveat emptor, as the two main screenwriters in contention for the gig are, respectively, a self-important wine critic and a self-important Supreme Court justice. Hubris abounds, as the would-be screenwriter critic reflects, "His editor has often told him he has a novel in him, for example, and if not a novel, why not a sixteen episode mini-series, with a three-hour pilot, that goes from the dawn of man up to the millennium?" Thane Tierney is a record executive in Los Angeles.
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