Abstract

The Cause of Diamonds depicts the emotional and mental breakdown of a young woman in contemporary Montreal. The two-part novel reflects a narrator endeavouring to harmonise her consciousness with her environment. Mia Diamond, narrator of the novel, is the offspring of a Canadian mother and a Greek father. In Part I, the adult Mia takes the reader on a journey back to her childhood. Much of Part I takes place in the ancestral land of her father. The world of her extended paternal family is one of superstition and myth, where the names of the ancient Greek Gods are evoked regularly. There is a belief in fate, and the uselessness of fighting against predestination. While sifting through the labyrinth of her memories, Mia alternately reconstructs and revises an assembly of scenes and images, all the while struggling between appearance and reality. At the heart of the novel, the scene to which she constantly returns and which is ultimately the climax of the novel, is the scene of a family birthday dinner where a tragedy occurs.