The book had been opposed by Jim Telford, a board of education trustee and member of the Pentecostal community, and Rev. However, only Laurence’s book was dealt with by the committee. Both books should have been reviewed by a special committee which had been established two years earlier to review complaints against other books. In the winter of 1976 complaints were lodged at two Peterborough high schools against both The Diviners and Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women (1971). In 1968 the Ontario Ministry of Education had given local school boards the authority to determine which literary works would be used in English classes. Laurence was living in Lakefield near Peterborough, Ontario when the first controversy erupted. On a larger scale, the novel’s tone is profoundly spiritual and life-affirming. The novel deals with issues of race, sexuality, class, poverty, and abortion, and contains strong language in keeping with the characters it portrays. A writer, Gunn experiences difficult relationships with both her lover and her daughter. Set in the Prairie town of Manawaka, The Diviners tells the epic story of Morag Gunn.
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