Liane Moriarty: ‘My life is laughably surreal’
Liane Moriarty found fame with Big Little Lies, but the successful author still isn’t used to the spotlight.
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LIANE Moriarty was driving back from the snow and on the phone to a Hollywood producer when she uttered a sentence she never thought she would say: “I’m writing a character for Meryl Streep.”
The author was updating the Big Little Lies team on how the story for the second season was coming along. “Oh Liane,” the producer on the other end teased.
“You’ve become so Hollywood. Listen to you saying, ‘Get me Meryl.’”
While she laughs at her own audacity, Moriarty clearly has chutzpah — and clout.
While writing a character for Streep may have been a fanciful pipedream cooked up in a moment of whimsy for the 51-year-old Sydney author, the legendary actor liked the role so much that she did, indeed, sign on to star in the multi award-winning series.
Filming is now complete, but Moriarty is still incredulous — and not just about Meryl.
She was initially reluctant to write a follow-up to her best-selling book, but ideas on how to propel the story forward kept sneaking into her head.
“I was talking to my sister and she said I should only do it if it was fun to do, so I came up with the idea of bringing in the mothers’ mothers because they’re so important in our lives.”
The first HBO series featured Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley as a group of mums living in a beachside suburb, but Moriarty wanted to extend the cast.
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With Streep in mind for the role of the mother-in-law to Celeste, who is played by Kidman, she cheekily named the character Mary Louise after discovering it was Streep’s real name.
In the end it was Kidman who secured the celebrated actor for the part.
“Nicole sent me an email saying, ‘Ask and you shall receive,’” Moriarty says. “It’s all extraordinary and laughably surreal.”
Life is about to become even more extraordinary for the author. Her new novel, Nine Perfect Strangers, will hit shelves on Tuesday and Kidman has already secured the rights to produce and star in the adaptation.
The novel tells the story of nine strangers who meet at a remote health resort being presided over by a wellness evangelist intent on reinvigorating their lives.
With Kidman at the helm, Nine Perfect Strangers is expected to follow up Big Little Lies’ massive success.
But for Moriarty it’s not the star-studded casts and glittering awards nights that matter most. The highlight is a simple one: witnessing someone reading her book.
“That’s more of a thrill than anything,” she says. “I always remember the first time I saw someone reading my first novel, Three Wishes. It was on a Sydney ferry. That joy never goes away.”
Posing for the Stellar shoot in her own clothing — “I really don’t like having my photo taken” — Moriarty chooses her words carefully.
She tries to keep in mind her partner Adam’s advice that she must give interesting answers to questions (he once heard Moriarty asked on radio to describe her writing space and told her she needed to come up with a better response).
While she might not easily find the words to describe her own life, she’s made her name by capturing the human condition in writing.
There’s a knowingness in her descriptions of people and situations that transcend most commercial fiction, married with rollicking good plots.
Moriarty laughs at the suggestion she’d make a good counsellor and posits that the only reason she might possess such a skill is because her brain is hopeless at other things. Like map reading. And operating machinery.
“I like observing human life and I try to gain an understanding of things,” she says.
“We once went on a camping tour around Turkey and I can tell you lots about the relationships between the people on that trip, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing about where we went.”
Moriarty doesn’t like to think too much about why her books strike such a chord, she says. She’s sold 14 million copies worldwide, been translated into more than 40 languages and three of her titles have reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list.
Jennifer Aniston and Blake Lively are poised to star in What Alice Forgot and The Husband’s Secret respectively, while Kidman and Witherspoon optioned the film rights to Truly Madly Guilty.
“When I talk about or think too much about why they resonate I become too aware of my own process and I might try too hard to repeat it,” she says thoughtfully.
“In any case, there are lots and lots of wonderful books out there. I don’t think I’m doing anything wonderful or special, and it would be a mistake if I start to think I am.”
The eldest of six children, Moriarty grew up telling stories but only galvanised herself to write a novel after her sister Jaclyn was published.
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She remembers feeling “hot with happiness” when people were encouraging about her writing.
Years later her eyes shine with delight when she recalls fruitful periods of work. Near the end of writing Nine Perfect Strangers, Adam took their two primary-school aged children, George and Anna, away so she could finish.
“I still remember the pleasure of it. Sometimes I want to write another book just for those two perfect days. The writing was coming together, I could see the ending and I was loving it,” she says with a laugh.
“Obviously it’s not always like that. In the beginning there’s a lot of faffing and standing up to get another cup of tea.”
While critical and commercial success bring huge rewards, they can also bring more pressure. Having had two books debut in the top spot on The New York Times bestseller list, she’d naturally like Nine Perfect Strangers to be as well received and admits to a sense of foreboding.
But she tries to dismiss expectations — both others’ and her own. She’ll never forget carrying her daughter into a cafe and receiving a message saying The Husband’s Secret had made it onto the celebrated list.
“Instead of ordering muesli, as I’d planned, we had French toast with maple syrup. Whenever I taste maple syrup I still associate it with the words ‘The New York Times bestseller.’”
While she’s known to modestly deflect questions about her friendship with Kidman, she’s evidently delighted to have the Hollywood heavyweight championing her work.
So what did Kidman say about the new book? “Oh, all the right things,” Moriarty says with a smile. “Just that she loved it. That’s all you want to hear.”
That said, success isn’t all rosy. Big Little Lies winning eight Emmys may have been thrilling, but finding a dress to wear to the ceremony wasn’t, Moriarty recalls.
Still, photographs from the premiere of the show now sit on her parents’ wall, alongside her siblings’ wedding portraits. “No, we’re not married,” Moriarty says with a laugh about her own marital status. “We haven’t got around to it. Maybe one day.”
While she hesitates to talk about Adam and her children, family is clearly the bedrock of her life. Just as she’s still surprised when she sees her novels displayed in a store, Moriarty, who went through IVF, admits to still suffering a pang whenever she hears someone is pregnant.
“I still have that memory of the days when I was desperate to have a baby. I have to remind myself: ‘It’s OK, you’ve got them now.’”
Not that said children respect her role as a celebrated international author. In an attempt to describe her workplace, she paints a picture: the lovely long wooden writer’s desk Adam sourced from an auction house, the piles of books dotted around her office and the tatty chair that needs replacing.
“Everyone comes in and uses my desk,” she says with faux annoyance. “I try to tell them I’m the writer and they should treat my desk with a little more respect. But Adam disagrees: ‘No, no, it’s just a hot desk,’ he tells me.”
And with that, she’s off home to claim some time at her desk before her children get back from school.
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty (Macmillan Australia, $32.99) is out on Tuesday.
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Originally published as Liane Moriarty: ‘My life is laughably surreal’
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