Sibling rivalry? It’s just a big little lie
Award-winning author Jaclyn Moriarty insists she has no jealousy towards her sister Liane, the best-selling novelist of Big Little Lies fame.
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Award-winning author Jaclyn Moriarty insists she has no jealousy towards her sister Liane, the best-selling novelist of Big Little Lies fame.
Even my 12-year-old son has asked me: “Why don’t you just write more like Liane?”
Of course, people say it thinking they’re being helpful. And if anybody could write like my sister I’m sure they would... and they’d be selling millions of books, too.
But that’s not what it’s about for me. You have to write the way that you are.
I’m the second oldest of six, two of whom are also professional writers — Liane and Nicola.
Who knows whether it was biology or our upbringing, but our childhood definitely instilled a love of writing in the three of us.
My dad is a great storyteller. Growing up, instead of giving us pocket money, Dad would commission us to write stories.
I was shy when I was small, so writing was how I expressed myself; I wrote obsessively on the back of serviettes.
It was, and still is, a form of escapism for me.
When I finished school I was given some sound advice: that you should have a life before becoming a writer, for material at least. I chose to study law.
After attending the University of Sydney, I did a Master’s degree at Yale and a PhD at Cambridge. I was putting off becoming a lawyer, because I knew that once I got a job, then that was it.
So in the midst of my PhD, I started to write like it was my very last chance.
The result was Feeling Sorry For Celia, the first of a series of young adult novels, which won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award in 2001.
I love writing for teens, but I needed a different outlet. So for the past 15 years, I have been formulating and writing my second adult novel, Gravity Is The Thing.
When Liane got her first novel published, while she was working in advertising, I recall someone saying to me that it was a good thing, as now we’d be in competition.
I was taken aback! I thought, it’s not like we’re running in a race and now I am going to train harder because she’s racing, too.
I’ve always written the best possible book I can write. It made me so happy that she had dreamed of this and it had come true.
And everything great that has happened to Liane since then I’ve got to experience by proxy — without any of the stress or anxiety.
In 2017 Liane attended the Emmys, where the TV adaptation of her book Big Little Lies won multiple awards.
It was one of the happiest nights of my life getting her texts from the afterparty, telling me about the conversation she’d just had with Alexander Skarsgård, who I have a massive crush on.
You see if I’d been there, I would have been too starstruck to even say hello.
People say “Aren’t you jealous?” But she wrote the books, she’s got the talent, and she works hard for it.
It would be silly to be envious because we’re all helping raise each other’s profiles.
The idea that we must be competitive is definitely applied to women more than men.
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I might be wrong, but I don’t think I’ve seen articles saying there’s a rivalry between the Hemsworth brothers.
People are drawn to conflict, and I kind of understand that because it’s boring to just hear us say that we love each other.
But one of the greatest pleasures in life is the pride you feel when someone you love achieves something great.
Gravity Is The Thing by Jaclyn Moriarty (Pan Macmillan, $32.99) is out on Tuesday.
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Originally published as Sibling rivalry? It’s just a big little lie
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