"Jesse Ball: a jester of sorts, and his novels are cosmic dramas. Reading The Divers' Game is a lesson in ingenuity, gameplaying, worldbuilding, and moral empathy. No spoilers, but the final pages are a novel in themselves, as a woman writes a letter during her last moments on earth. Some would call this 'classic Jesse Ball,' but I've come to learn there's no such thing."
Publisher Ecco
Publication Date 2019-09-10
Section New Hardcover - Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Spencer R.
Format
ISBN 9780062676108
From the inimitable mind of award-winning author Jesse Ball, a novel about an unsettlingly familiar society that has renounced the concept of equality—and the devastating consequences of unmitigated power The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavor. The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives. The Divers’ Game is a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse. What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture? The Divers’ Game explores the consequences of violence through two festivals, and through the dramatic and excruciating examination of a woman’s final moments. Brilliantly constructed and achingly tender, The Divers’ Game shatters the notion of common decency as the binding agent between individuals, forcing us to consider whether compassion is intrinsic to the human experience. With his signature empathy and ingenuity, Jesse Ball’s latest work solidifies his reputation as one of contemporary fiction’s most mesmerizing talents.