Jump to content

Draft:The Divers' Game

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Divers' Game
AuthorJesse Ball
LanguageEnglish
GenreDystopian fiction[1]
PublishedSeptember 10, 2019[1]
PublisherEcco
Publication placeUnited States
Pages240[1]
ISBN978-0-06-267610-8

The Divers' Game is a 2019 dystopian novel by American novelist Jesse Ball, published by Ecco.

Synopsis

[edit]

In a dystopian future, an unnamed country brands its refugees with tattoos and relegates them to "quadrants", areas outside cities where no laws are followed. The "quads", as this group is called, are at the mercy of "pats", official citizens who are taught to gas them. The story, styled as a series of vignettes told by a teacher, is set during two observances: Ogias' Day, in which "pats" use debt forgiveness as a tool for national unity; and the quads' Day of the Infanta, where violence and chaos loom.[2][3]

Themes

[edit]

The novel's titular game urges its players "to swim from one interconnected lake to another through a deep tunnel without drowning". Chelsea Leu of The New York Times Book Review compared the events of Game to contemporary border crises in the United States.[2]

Reception

[edit]

The staff of Kirkus Reviews wrote that The Divers' Game "[is] imaginatively horrifying, even if it doesn't always make sense, and readers who appreciate Ball's keen, melancholic, and often sadly satirical view of human society will likely appreciate this timely assessment of where division might take us and how it affects the generations that come after us."[1] Donna Seaman of Booklist said, "Writing with blood-freezing sparseness, Ball illuminates this calamitously immoral place in loosely linked episodes."[4] Publishers Weekly called it "[an] atmospheric, occasionally mesmerizing tale of haves and have-nots [in spite of the] stilted exposition".[3]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d "Review: 'The Divers' Game'". Kirkus Reviews. Vol. LXXXVII, no. 13. July 1, 2019. ISSN 1948-7428. ProQuest 2248216086. Retrieved June 25, 2024.
  2. ^ a b Leu, Chelsea (September 15, 2019). "Review: 'The Divers' Game'". The New York Times Book Review: 22. ISSN 0028-7806. Retrieved June 25, 2024 – via ProQuest.
  3. ^ a b "Fiction Reviews: 'The Divers' Game'". Publishers Weekly. 266 (26). July 1, 2019. ISSN 0000-0019. Retrieved June 25, 2024 – via ProQuest.
  4. ^ Seaman, Donna (September 1, 2019). "Review: 'The Divers' Game'". Booklist. 116 (1): 44. ISSN 0006-7385. Retrieved June 25, 2024 – via ProQuest.
[edit]