An author who’s sold 25 million copies of her books shouldn’t feel worried about what people will think of her latest work. But for Liane Moriarty, reader excitement is matched only by her own tense anticipation for their reactions.
“I am extremely nervous!” Liane tells Woman’s Day in the lead-up to the release of Big Little Truths, the sequel to the bestselling Big Little Lies.
“Writing the book was like returning to an old neighbourhood and meeting up with old friends who I hadn’t seen in years. I just hope readers will feel the same.”
While the 2014 novel was a worldwide bestseller, the HBO television miniseries introduced an even wider audience to Liane’s characters in 2017, with Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and a cast of other high-profile stars playing roles.
The TV show was a hit, garnering a string of Emmy awards in 2017 – an event Liane attended and says was a “surreal out-of-body experience”.
While she didn’t sit in the writer’s room alongside it star-producers, Nicole and Reese, she enjoyed watching from the sidelines when she visited the set.
“I am very hands off with adaptations. It’s not my area of expertise and so I’m very happy to be a very interested observer on the sidelines,” she says.
HAPPY, SAFE PLACE
While Liane’s two Big Little books are both set in Australia, the Hollywood version transplanted the characters of Madeline and Celeste to the sweeping photogenic cliffs of California’s Monterey.
The second season of the TV series was based on an as-yet-unpublished novella written by Liane at the request of producers.
Season three will be based on the new novel, although Liane, 59, is quick to explain that while Nicole and Reese – who are executive producers of the show – saw early drafts of the book and she was “thrilled they had positive comments”, that’s where the Sydney-based author’s involvement in the TV series ends.
“They did not give me notes! I only take notes from my editors,” she says. “I’m sure they probably didn’t love everything about the book, but they were very polite.
“And of course they are free to change whatever they like in the adaptation!
“Television is a different medium and changes are inevitable. Whenever readers say, ‘I hope they don’t change the book!’ I always say, ‘Nobody can change the book or your experience of reading it.’”
The idea for this particular story, Liane explains, came from a “high-profile criminal case” she won’t reveal, although she explains she became “very interested in a certain person’s motivations for behaving the way they did”.
“I started writing a story set in a high school and then it occurred to me that the story could work well in my Big Little Lies community,” she says, adding that she loved returning to those characters.
“I think I was especially pleased to be back with Celeste and to open the book with her in a happy, safe place, after what I had put her through in the original book,” she says.
SUSPENSE & HUMOUR
A lot has changed in Liane’s life since she first conjured up those Big Little Lies characters from her desk in Sydney’s leafy North Shore.
It was the first book she’d written after The Husband’s Secret, which in 2013 propelled her from the comfortable but anonymous world of being a well-regarded mid-list author of adult and children’s books into a bestselling writer in the US, hitting the number-one spot on The New York Times list.
But her novels since then have remained much the same, suspense and dark humour, mostly set in a familiar Australian suburban setting, they’ve continued to find readers across the world and have been translated into 40 languages.
All 11 of her adult books have been optioned for screen, with Nine Perfect Strangers starring Nicole Kidman being released in 2021, Apples Never Fall starring the late Sam Neill and Annette Bening in 2024 and The Last Anniversary, published in 2005, being made into a series headed up by Teresa Palmer last year.
But despite more than $50 million worth of sales, Liane intends to keep on writing for as long as she can – her dad Bernie once bought her exercise books as a child and paid her a dollar if she filled them. And while the North Shore home has been swapped for a house overlooking Balmoral Beach, which she shares with husband Adam Gatenby, she says their son and daughter keep her grounded.
“Teenage children are very good at bringing you back down to earth. It comes naturally to them,” she laughs. “I am certainly not in danger of becoming too full of myself.”
But she has a very typical in-built Aussie self-depreciation, evident when asked what advice she would give her 2013 self, when she was on the brink of becoming a worldwide bestselling author.
“One of your books is going to be adapted into an HBO series,” she says.
“This is wonderful, but when you choose your outfit for the premiere, may I suggest you reconsider your first choice of shoes and bag, or you may find yourself shaking your head in disbelief every time you see a photo from that night.”
