TUSCALOOSA | Rick Moody, who built University of Alabama women's basketball from a lower-tier program into a national contender, decided it was time to step down when he saw the program fall from ...

By Rick Moody 306 pp. Henry Holt & Company. $28. A version of this article appears in print on , Page 14 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: He Said, He Said .

Rick Moody, author of The Ice Storm, has just published his first novel in seven years. The Diviners satirizes the entertainment industry, circa 2000.

His midcareer wounding, at the hands of the critic Dale Peck, was a crisis in which his readers participated. Mr. Moody himself may care relatively little about the famous review — “Rick Moody is the ...