Review: Jeremy Vine – The Diver and The Lover

Jeremy Vine opened Saturday at the Wells Festival of Literature with a highly entertaining illustrated talk outlining the inspiration behind his latest novel The Diver and The Lover, a romantic book largely set in 1950s Franco's Spain.

"Soaked in sunlight, love and the mysteries surrounding a famous artist, The Diver and the Lover is a novel inspired by true events."

His inspiration for the book involved three individuals, a Spanish monk of the mid-1500s called St John of the Cross, a Hollywood stunt man called Russell Saunders and Salvador Dali.

John became a priest in 1567 and considered joining the Carthusian Order where monks lived cloistered in individual cells.

He was attracted by the simple and quiet life. However, he encountered Theresa of Avila, a charismatic Carmelite nun, who asked John to follow her.

John was drawn in to the strict routine followed by Theresa, as well as her devotion to prayer and simplicity. Her followers went barefoot, and were known as the discalced Carmelites.

In 1572, John travelled to Avila at the invitation of Theresa to become her confessor and spiritual guide.

While there, he had a vision of Christ and made a drawing, smaller than a Post-it note, showing Christ on the cross, looking down on him from above.

At the time this was regarded as a blasphemy because you weren't allowed to look at Jesus from above as it put you in the position of God himself. The drawing had a profound effect on the life of Russell Saunders.

Russell Saunders was born on a farm just outside Winnipeg, Canada, in 1919. He spent much of his childhood going to the local cinema where he became fascinated by stuntmen.

At the age of 19 he had become the Canadian diving champion. It was at this age that he first saw the film, Stagecoach, involving several death-defying stunts.

It was as a result of this film that he decided to become a stuntman and moved to Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, where great acrobats gathered to show off.

In 1942 he was discovered by Alfred Hitchcock who hired him as a stuntman for his film Saboteur. In 1948 he appeared in The Three Musketeers performing roof to roof jumps.

The link to Dali came about during one episode of Eggheads which was filmed in Glasgow. One of the questions asked was "who invented the Lobster Telephone"?

There was then a general discussion about Salvador Dali, with Jeremy saying that he regarded Dali mainly as a surrealist loon.

One of the eggheads said that this was not true and pointed Jeremy in the direction of the Kelvingrove gallery around the corner from the studio, where there was a famous Dali painting which was unlike any of the others.

It was there that he came across the painting, that took his breath away, it was Dali's work "The Christ of St John of the Cross".

This beautiful painting was based on the small drawing by St John of the Cross, showing Christ from above.

Vine became fascinated by this picture and discovered that the model for the painting was nonother than Russell Saunders, the stuntman.

A small plaque by the painting explained this and that Russell was strapped to a gantry in Dali's studio to help the artist envisage the pull of gravity.

Russell travelled to Port Ligat, the location of Dali's studio in Spain, in 1951, to model for the painting and met Dali at a hotel.

To Saunders' acute embarrassment Dali is involved in an argument with the hotel staff so Saunders backed away from the individuals arguing and accidently bumped into two English sisters from Hull.

The novel imagines what happened around the time of the painting when two fictional half-sisters, Ginny and Meredith, from Hull, travel to Catalonia, a destination Meredith, recently rescued from a lunatic asylum, has chosen in memory of her dead mother who loved modern art.

Discovering that Dali, Meredith's hero, is staying nearby and his intended model for his new project, an American movie stuntman, is planning to renege on their agreement, Ginny spots an opportunity that is to the advantage of both the sisters.

By finding an ideal replacement model in the shape of Adam, an athletic diver who she has designs on, and sending her sister along to witness her idol at work, Ginny dares to think it is a perfect solution.

But with Dali's political allegiance to Franco no secret and Catalonia fiercely separatist, the rumblings of political dissent threaten everything.