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‘Big Little Lies,’ by Liane Moriarty, reveals parents’ ugly secrets in quiet Aussie town

The cover art for Liane Moriarty's "Big Little Lies" flaunts an oversize, multicolored lollipop shattering into a thousand pieces. It's a perfect metaphor for the seemingly sweet lives of the novel's characters and how the sugar-coated lies they hide behind are smashed to bits.

In "Big Little Lies" and previous novels , including last year's compelling "The Husband's Secret," Moriarty chronicles what at first appear to be the simple, day-to-day experiences of wives and mothers in her native Australia. Except for their occasional use of "gidday" and other Australian colloquialisms, the women residing on the Pirriwee Peninsula near Sydney could just as easily live in Anywhere, U.S.A.

In the opening pages, angry shouts are heard coming from Pirriwee Public School, where parents in costumes are attending what should be a carefree fundraising event. Instead, moms dressed like Audrey Hepburn and dads decked out like Elvis Presley are brawling. One parent won’t survive, but before we find out who, the novel jumps back six months.

The family problems Moriarty unwraps are familiar even as we shake our heads, convinced that the terrible goings-on — domestic violence and bullying — could never happen to us.

We first meet Madeline on her 40th birthday. She’s married to the steadfast Ed, with whom she has two young children, Chloe and Fred. She’s also mother to teenage Abigail, whose father, Nathan, abandoned them when Abigail was an infant. Madeline has nurtured her grudge against Nathan for 14 years, fortifying it with growing resentment over the fact that he now appears to be a good father to his own daughter. She can’t appreciate her happy family life, and she can’t see what Ed can see: that her friends Celeste and Jane are “damaged” women.

Celeste is “unacceptably, hurtfully beautiful.” She lives with her wealthy husband and their twins in a gorgeous house overlooking the beach. Of all the secrets hidden in this book, Celeste’s are the ugliest. Moriarty’s explicit descriptions of beatings and the skewed logic of abuse will have you reeling. “A little violence,” Celeste tells herself, “was a bargain price for a life that would otherwise be just too sickeningly, lavishly, moonlit perfect.”

Single mom Jane has just moved to Pirriwee. Her son, Ziggy, is about to enter kindergarten. Jane has kept the identity of Ziggy’s father a secret and is still struggling with the terrible events that occurred on the night her son was conceived. When sweet Ziggy is accused of choking a classmate, Moriarty brings bullying to center stage and focuses on the outrageous behavior of parents. Middle-school mean girls, it seems, sometimes grow up to be mean mommies.

At the Pirriwee school, they're known as the "Blond Bobs" because of their hairstyles. Like followers of a cult, they fight to control everything and know what's best for everyone else. Maybe banning cupcakes from the classroom is worthy of consideration, but disagree with the Blond Bobs and you'll be shunned for life. Moriarty intuitively grasps these women's aspirations and how they brandish their children like trophies. One observant parent describes another as the "quintessential Blond Bob. She's on the PTA and she has a horrendously gifted daughter with a mild nut allergy. So she's part of the Zeitgeist, lucky girl."

Anyone with children knows that sending your son or daughter to school feels a lot like going back yourself. It’s true for the parents of Pirriwee, whose lives run parallel and then collide under the destructive power of their deceit. They won’t be able to hide behind the facades of Elvis and Audrey on that deadly night at the Pirriwee school.

“Big Little Lies” tolls a warning bell about the big little lies we tell in order to survive. It takes a powerful stand against domestic violence even as it makes us laugh at the adults whose silly costume party seems more reminiscent of a middle-school dance.

And with the new school year starting in a matter of weeks, the novel’s message about bullying is a timely one. “Pirriwee Public is a BULLY-FREE ZONE!” the school’s official policy boasts, but “Big Little Lies” reminds us that it takes brave, alert adults and courageous children to stop it.

Memmott’s reviews have appeared in USA Today and the Chicago Triibune.

BIG LITTLE LIES

By Liane Moriarty

Amy Einhorn/Putnam. 460 pp. $26.95

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2014

New York Times Bestseller

BIG LITTLE LIES

by Liane Moriarty ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 29, 2014

Deservedly popular Moriarty invigorates the tired social-issue formula of women’s fiction through wit, good humor, sharp...

After last year’s best-selling  The Husband’s   Secret , Australian Moriarty brings the edginess of her less-known  The Hypnotist’s Love Story  (2012) to bear in this darkly comic mystery surrounding a disastrous parents' night at an elementary school fundraiser.

Thanks to strong cocktails and a lack of appetizers, Pirriwee Public’s Trivia Night turns ugly when sloshed parents in Audrey Hepburn and Elvis costumes start fights at the main entrance. To make matters worse, out on the balcony where a smaller group of parents have gathered, someone falls over the railing and dies. Was it an accident or murder? Who is the victim? And who, if anyone, is the murderer? Backtrack six months as the cast of potential victims and perps meet at kindergarten orientation and begin alliances and rivalries within the framework of domestic comedy-drama. There’s Chloe’s opinionated, strong-willed mom, Madeline, a charmingly imperfect Everywoman. Happily married to second husband Ed, Madeline is deeply hurt that her older daughter wants to move in with her ex-husband and his much younger, New-Age–y second wife; even worse, the couple’s waifish daughter, Skye, will be in Chloe’s kindergarten class. Madeline’s best friend is Celeste, mother of twins Max and Josh. It’s hard for Madeline and the other moms not to envy Celeste. She's slim, rich and beautiful, and her marriage to hedge fund manager Perry seems too perfect to be true; it is. Celeste and Madeline befriend young single mother Jane, who has moved to the coast town with her son, Ziggy, the product of a one-night stand gone horribly wrong. After sweet-natured Ziggy is accused of bullying, the parents divide into defenders and accusers. Tensions mount among the mothers' cliques and within individual marriages until they boil over on the balcony. Despite a Greek chorus of parents and faculty sharing frequently contradictory impressions, the truth remains tantalizingly difficult to sort out.

Pub Date: July 29, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-399-16706-5

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Amy Einhorn/Putnam

Review Posted Online: June 14, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014

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BOOK TO SCREEN

How Book Adaptations Fared at Golden Globe Noms

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

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by Harper Lee

SEEN & HEARD

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen ) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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by J.D. Salinger

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The Cathartic Finale of “Big Little Lies”

By Jia Tolentino

In the first few minutes of the first episode of HBO’s “ Big Little Lies ,” the limited series that wrapped up on Sunday night, we are presented with the show’s central mystery: a brutal murder at a glitzy fund-raiser at the Otter Bay Elementary School, in Monterey, California. Quick cuts from police interviews—idle, bitchy speculation tendered by well-off parents—provide the show’s Greek chorus, breaking up the voluptuous, extended flashbacks that lead the viewer back to the night of the crime.

“Big Little Lies” was adapted by David E. Kelley from a Liane Moriarty novel of the same name. It’s about three mothers: Madeline (Reese Witherspoon, high-strung and glorious); Celeste (Nicole Kidman, bewitching and bruised); and Jane (Shailene Woodley as an outsider, too young and too poor). Their stories move quickly: careful charades and impulsive acts tumble headlong, punctuated by transition shots of pale surf exploding against black rocks off the coast. The murder mystery, meanwhile, goes still. The chorus offers no information—the gossip mainly reminds us why a person who lives in Monterey might want to keep secrets. We get no clues as to who committed the crime or who died.

As the series progresses, the structural gimmick begins to make the murder feel extraneous, almost as though it were a red herring—and the most delicious thing about the finale is that, in a way, we learn, it is. The great revelation of “Big Little Lies” is not the identity of the murder victim (it’s Perry, Celeste’s abusive husband, luridly played by Alexander Skarsgård), or the identity of the killer (that would be Bonnie, the young bohemian married to Madeline’s ex-husband, and played by Zoë Kravitz; she sees Perry beating Celeste and pushes him over a drop-off—in the book, Bonnie has her own history of being abused). The finale was set up to answer a different question. The women have been revealing their secrets in pieces throughout the series, and Jane’s secret is that her son, Ziggy, was conceived in a violent rape by a man she had just met. When, on the night of the fund-raiser, Perry approaches Celeste in a predatory fever, Jane, who has not previously been introduced to Celeste’s husband, suddenly recognizes his look: Perry is the man who picked her up, gave her a fake name, and assaulted her in a motel room. He has raped both of them, and fathered their sons.

Part of what has made “Big Little Lies” stand out amid the ever-growing crowd of interesting TV shows is its utterly natural rendering of violence as an ordinary part of women’s lives. (My colleague Emily Nussbaum described the show in her review as “a reflection on trauma.”) The show understands that minor social transactions between women can express the nuances of violence with a unique specificity and a nauseating subtlety. Jean Marc-Vallée, the director, roams these sun-drenched, luscious settings with a handheld camera and a sense of unease. In the finale, just before the climax, as a ballad drifts in from the lantern-lit party, fifteen remarkable seconds pass. One of Jane’s P.T.S.D. flashbacks has merged with the present, confirming Perry’s identity; her face becomes a mask of fear. Madeline looks at her, follows her gaze to Perry, and then looks back at Jane, altered—she’s figured it out. Madeline catches Celeste’s eye and turns it toward Jane, who nods almost imperceptibly. The show’s twist has been communicated wordlessly among all three of them. Witnessing this, Perry panics, and lunges forward to bludgeon his wife.

It’s an electric sequence. Witherspoon, as Madeline, was the immediate draw of “Big Little Lies,” with her mutinous Tracy Flick charm resurrected and blazing. But Kidman, as Celeste, emerged as the real showstopper. She has the most ambitious narrative arc in the series, the widest gap between appearance and truth. To friends and neighbors, her relationship with Perry looks dreamy and lustful; it’s actually a maelstrom of codependency and marital rape. (Male critics have written differently about “Big Little Lies” than women, by and large—at the Times, Mike Hale noted that Celeste was an abuse victim but then compared her relationship with Perry to “Fifty Shades of Grey.”) Celeste responds to abuse in a manner that feels painfully realistic. She tries to take ownership of her situation by hitting him back; she tries to find pleasure in it, fitting her lust around his blows. She articulates a neat narrative to Madeline; then a messier one to a therapist (Robin Weigert), with Perry present; then she tells an increasingly honest story as she returns to the therapist alone. By the final episode, Celeste has rented and furnished an apartment; a brutal and unambiguous beating has made her ready to leave with her twin sons. But Perry sees a message from the property manager on Celeste’s phone just before they leave for the fund-raiser, and, watching husband and wife get in their car, leaving the kids behind with a babysitter, you fear for her life.

By then, the show’s secondary mystery has been solved. There’s a bad seed in Otter Bay’s first-grade classroom: some kid has been bullying a girl named Amabella, who, in the first episode, identifies Jane’s son Ziggy as her attacker. Ziggy, though, maintains his innocence, and, in the finale, he reluctantly tells Jane that the kid who has been choking and biting Amabella is Max—one of Celeste’s twins. On the day of the fund-raiser, Jane breaks the news to Celeste as gently as she can. “I definitely considered the fact that he could be lying just to protect himself,” Jane says, referring to Ziggy. “And I had to face the fact that violence could be in his DNA, given who his dad is.” Celeste reels. She’s been telling herself that the twins don’t know about the abuse, but we know this is wishful thinking: the finale opens with a shot of an air vent in Celeste’s basement, through which the boys, playing with video games and toy guns, can hear her scream. Their world is already a miniature version of Celeste’s, beautiful and violent. “They grow out of it,” Jane says to Celeste about bullying kids. “Sometimes they don’t,” Celeste replies.

Much has been made of the show’s soundtrack: “Big Little Lies” draws on pop songs to set its tone as assiduously as any show since “The O.C.” The music tends toward the soulful, and it is often diegetic—we hear what the characters hear. (Many of the songs issue, improbably, from a well-stocked iPod operated by Madeline’s six-year-old daughter.) It is also woven into the story much the way that trauma is: as a pulsing, irregular beat—a jangly noise that rises and falls in volume and affects everyone who can hear it. The finale ends by intercutting the show’s most idyllic scene with its most violent: the mothers and their children are on the beach, dazzling and windswept; dark images of Perry beating Celeste in the other women’s presence intrude. The potentially garish mélange is rendered in a way that somehow feels appropriate, even ordinary—and surprisingly generous . That’s the approach that has made this queasy, gorgeous show so good.

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Big Little Lies

Liane Moriarty | 4.43 | 1,082,294 ratings and reviews

Ranked #2 in Australian , Ranked #2 in Secrets — see more rankings .

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• #60 in Crime Mystery
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Book Review

Book Review : Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Author: Liane Moriarty

Publisher: Berkley

Genre: Mystery, Chick lit

First Publication: 2014

Language:  English

Major Characters: Celeste White, Madeline Martha Mackenzie, Jane Chapman

Theme: The Pain of Lying and the Healing Power of the Truth, Women and femininity, Family and Marriage, Friendship

Setting: Sydney, New South Wales (Australia)

Narrator: Third Person Omniscient point of view

Book Summary: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Three mothers, Jane, Madeline and Celeste appear to have it all, until they find out just how easy it is for one little lie to spiral out of control . . .

Single mum Jane has just moved to town. She’s got her little boy in tow – plus a secret she’s been carrying for five years.

On the first day of the school run she meets Madeline – a force to be reckoned with, who remembers everything and forgives no one – and Celeste, the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare, but is inexplicably ill at ease.

They both take Jane under their wing – while careful to keep their own secrets under wraps.

But a minor incident involving the children of all three women rapidly escalates: playground whispers become spiteful rumours until no one can tell the truth from the lies . . .

Liane Moriarty’s novel Big Little Lies has become a sensational bestseller and one of the best books by women in recent years, only supported by its critically acclaimed and immensely watchable HBO adaptation starring Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley and Laura Dern among others (which features some of the best casting choices I’ve ever witnessed in a book-to-film/TV adaptation).

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty is absolutely addictive. I have turned page after page in one sitting alone, it didn’t take long for me to finish the novel. The plot works brilliantly by using a very interesting formula: take the lives of several characters who appear to be so perfect and oh-so-normal from the outside; and throw them into a difficult situation in order to reveal their true characters by showing how they deal with the situations; and then reveal the dark secrets shadowing their seemingly perfect lives.

“They say it’s good to let your grudges go, but I don’t know, I’m quite fond of my grudge. I tend it like a little pet.”

It’s a formula which could not have worked better, though one aspect certainly helped: the fact that the characters were so vibrant. We got to know every little shade of their souls, and even with the uncomfortable subjects which are placed at the heart of the story, it felt comforting to place oneself in their neighborhood and watch their conflict-disquieted lives unravel.

Yes, it was certainly uncomfortable at times, but that was the entire point of the novel. It’s the reason this book is so memorable and different in the first place. Self-centered people like the characters portrayed in Liane Moriarty’s world live all around the planet. What the show did so great was to paint these women in such an interesting light that you could not help but root for them anyway.

“All conflict can be traced back to someone’s feelings getting hurt, don’t you think?”

What an outrageously crazy book Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty is – and I’m saying that in a good way. Hot tempered Mother’s who become too involved in their child’s disputes (and I’m talking about children aged 4-5yrs), to the point of seeking out revenge; threatening other parents, twisting the truth and even signing partitions to have a child expelled. It’s complete madness! But while it all may seem like madness, it’s really not far from the truth.

The other reason why I enjoyed Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty was the mystery surrounding the death . The book starts off with a death on trivia night, but the reader will not know who died until the end. It backtracks 6 months prior to when the parents and children met on school orientation day.

We get to know these parents, see their different personality, how they interact with one another, and get an insight into their little circle of friendships. The parents are known to one other through kindergarten, and living in a small seaside community, so they’ve already had formed their own little groups. They are civil to one other but a lot of backstabbing goes on behind their back. However, when a bully incident happens with the children on orientation day, tempers flare and grudges are formed. Which divides the adult further apart and makes life a living hell for one new, single mother of Pirriwee Pubic School for the next 6 months.

“Reading a novel was like returning to a once-beloved holiday destination.”

In Big Little Lies we follow the lives of the mothers of Pirriwee Public School. Initially they seem confident, beautiful and stylish mothers with a stable and well balanced home/work life. But that’s on the surface. It’s all a great big lie. As we read on, we do start to see some serious cracks showing. The book tackles a range of family and personal problems; growing older and body image, rebellious teenagers, ex-spouses, infidelity and spousal abuse.

“Everyone wanted to be rich and beautiful, but the truly rich and beautiful had to pretend they were just the same as everyone else.”

Liane Moriarty is a very skilled and clear storyteller, and while it may seem a lot to take in, at no stage did I feel overwhelmed or lose focus. Each character is given their own chapter – and voice, where the reader gets to see and feel their suffering and confusion. Meanwhile giving us snippet of witness testimonies at the beginning and end of each chapter, just to remind us that we are getting nearer to discovering who died. And if it was murderer? Hoping it’s not the one of the people I have grown to really care for.

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Big Little Lies review: someone’s going to end up dead – but who?

Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman star in this fabulous adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s bestseller, which goes beyond Desperate Housewives territory with a satisfying darkness

S omeone’s Dead is the title of the first episode of Big Little Lies (Sky Atlantic). Who, though? You’ll know, if you’ve read Liane Moriarty ’s bestseller from which this series is adapted – and transported from New South Wales to California. Otherwise, not only do you not know who’s dead, but neither do you know who killed them. Or who will be dead, and who will kill them, depending on whether it’s mainly now with a bit of flashing forward (crime scene, police lights, interviews at the police station), or mainly flashing back with a little bit of now. Whodunnit, whogotdun, or who’lldoit, who’llgetdun, if you see what I mean.

What do we know? That Jane Chapman ( Shailene Woodley ) shows up with her son Ziggy in the town of Monterey and is adopted by Madeline Martha Mackenzie ( Reese Witherspoon ; don’t forget the small screen is the new silver one. Wait till you see who plays Celeste).

It’s perfect – everything and everyone (and their kitchen, and their house, and the view from their house) is so welcoming and so beautiful. Beautiful Celeste ( Nicole Kidman !) photographs her beautiful boys with a Pacific sunset backdrop, before her perfect husband ( Alexander Skarsgård ) grabs her romantically and pulls her towards him …

The local school is just like the first day of term at our local school: a lot of top-level networking – “Hey, how were the holidays?” “Yeah, great, you know, joined the board of PayPal …”

But then there is an incident at school: someone hurts Amabella, PayPal Renata’s little girl. Yes, that is Amabella with an “m”. Excellent way of dealing with the incident too – a very public naming and shaming at pickup time, in front of everyone, parents included. I must try to get that introduced at our school. Actually, it’s not quite naming and shaming, because it’s the first day and they don’t know each other’s names yet; so it comes down to finger-pointing. And Amabella points hers at Ziggy.

What! Ziggy, who seemed such a nice, thoughtful, shy little boy? Did he really try to throttle Amabella? And was it the “m” that pushed him over the edge? (I think the answer is no, to all of the above. I haven’t read it, but I don’t think I’d be enjoying Big Little Lies any less if I had).

Anyway, sides are taken, factions form, and suddenly what looked like perfection is cracked and flawed. Life, for the ladies of Monterey, is not quite as it seemed, but an epic power struggle, a raging sea of jealousies and insecurities.

It’s not just through the one-way mirrors in the interrogation room that people are being watched. You get the feeling that everyone is, all the time, in different ways and for different reasons, mostly bad ones. The police, incidentally, are themselves a window into a different world, a less glamorous one, where kitchen islands aren’t the size of actual islands in the sea. Ah, there’s another crack, you see, between rich and poor, potentially as volatile and dangerous as the San Andreas fault.

Madeline has lost her husband to a younger, suppler (she’s a yoga teacher) woman; now she’s worried she is losing her children, too, and that her purpose in life is over. Even nice, relatively normal Jane has darkness in her past, something she’s running away from – the thing that brought her to Monterey in the first place. And under all the lovey-doveyness, Celeste’s Mr Perfect turns out to be an A-hole.

Someone’s going to end up in a hole in the ground. Because you know where it’s leading, even if you don’t yet know why or who. The flashing backwards or forwards, and the flashing police lights, takes it beyond Desperate Housewives territory, adds a satisfying darkness to the comedy, pulls it inexorably like a riptide in the ocean below towards the inevitable: death.

Incidentally, and appropriately, Big Little Lies came about via a sort of power struggle. Both Kidman and Witherspoon loved the novel and tried to option it through their production companies. In some ways, it would have been more perfect if they had fought over it, destroying each other in the process. But instead they settled for peaceful collaboration (both are listed as executive producers as well as co-stars). And that’s OK too, because it’s rather fabulous.

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Liane Moriarty, Author of Apples Never Fall and Big Little Lies , Wrote a New Novel — Read an Excerpt! (Exclusive)

The bestselling author's new book, 'Here One Moment,' features a mysterious woman predicting others' deaths with scary accuracy

Uber Photography; Crown

Mega-bestselling author Liane Moriarty has a new novel coming out this fall and if you're also dying to read it, PEOPLE has an exclusive sneak peek!

Here One Moment will be released by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, on Sept. 10.

With multiple #1 New York Times bestsellers, over 20 million copies of her books sold around the world and three novels adopted for the screen, Moriarty is one of the most widely read novelists writing today.

Readers may know Moriarty from the Emmy-winning HBO series Big Little Lies , starring Nicole Kidman , Reese Witherspoon , Shailene Woodley , Laura Dern and Zoë Kravitz . She's also the author of Apples Never Fall , now a Peacock limited series starring Annette Bening and Sam Neill, and Nine Perfect Strangers , starring Kidman, Melissa McCarthy , Bobby Cannavale and Regina Hall .  

Here One Moment introduces readers to an ensemble cast of travelers on an average domestic flight: a joyous newlywed couple still dressed in their wedding finery; an overwhelmed mother with a toddler and infant in tow; a pair of empty-nesters on their way home from a cross-country trip; a frantic father desperate to get back in time for his daughter’s school play; and an unremarkable older woman.

Minutes before landing, the older woman suddenly rises from her seat and tells each passenger the age and cause of their death. Ranging from reassuring to unsettling, most are able to dismiss the predictions by “the Death Lady” (as she later becomes known) as the ravings of an unwell woman—until her predictions start coming true.

Hooked yet? Read an exclusive excerpt below:

Later, not a single person will recall seeing the lady board the flight at Hobart airport. 

Nothing about her appearance or demeanour raises a red flag or even an eyebrow. 

She is not drunk or belligerent or famous. 

She is not injured, like the bespectacled hipster with his arm scaffolded in white gauze so that one hand is permanently pressed to his heart, as if professing his love or honesty. 

She is not frazzled, like the sweaty young mother trying to keep a grip on a slippery baby, a furious toddler and far too much carry-on. 

She is not frail, like the stooped elderly couple wearing multiple heavy layers as if they’re off to join Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition. 

She is not grumpy, like the various middle-aged people with various middle-aged things on their minds, or the flight’s only unaccompanied minor: a six year old forced to miss his friend’s laser-tag party because his parents shared custody agreement requires him to be on this flight to Sydney every Friday afternoon.

She is not chatty, like the couple so eager to share details of their holiday you can’t help but wonder if they’re working uncover for a Tasmanian state government tourism initiative. 

She is not extremely pregnant like the extremely pregnant woman. 

She is not extremely tall like the extremely tall kid. 

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She is not useful, like the square-shouldered, square-jawed man with a grey buzzcut who effortlessly helps passengers hoist carry-ons into overhead lockers as he walks down the aisle of the plane without breaking his stride. 

She is not quivery from fear of flying or espresso or let’s hope not amphetamines like the jittery teen wearing an oversized hoodie over very short shorts which makes it look like she’s not wearing any pants and someone says she’s that singer dating that actor, but someone else says no, that’s not her, I know who you mean, but that’s not her. 

She is not shiny-eyed like the shiny-eyed honeymooners flying to Sydney still in their lavish bridal clothes, those crazy kids, leaving ripples of good will in their wake, and even an offer from a couple to give up their business class seats, which the bride and groom politely but firmly refuse, much to the couple’s relief. 

The lady is not anything that anyone will later recall. 

The flight is delayed. Only by half an hour. There are scowls and sighs, but for the most part passengers are willing to accept this inconvenience. That’s flying these days. 

At least it’s not cancelled. ‘Yet,’ say the pessimists. 

The PA crackles an announcement: passengers requiring special assistance are invited to board. 

"Told you so!" the optimists jump to their feet and sling bags over their shoulders. 

Once all passengers are boarded, seated and buckled, the pilot introduces himself and explains there is a "minor mechanical issue we need to resolve’ and ‘passengers will appreciate that safety is paramount." The cabin crew, he points out, with just the hint of a smile in his deep, trustworthy voice, are hearing about this at the same time as you. (So leave them be.) He thanks them for their patience and asks them to sit back and relax and they should be on their way in the next 15 minutes. 

They are not on their way in 15 minutes. 

The plane sits on the tarmac without moving for 92 horrendous minutes. This is just a little longer than the expected flight time. 

Eventually the optimists stop saying, "I’m sure we’ll still make it!" 

Everyone is displeased: optimists and pessimists alike. 

During this time, the lady does not press her call bell to tell a flight attendant about her connection or dinner reservation or migraine or dislike of confined spaces or her very busy adult daughter with three children who is already on her way to the airport in Sydney to pick her up, and what is she meant to do now? 

She does not throw back her head and howl for 20 excruciating minutes, like the baby, who is really just manifesting everyone’s feelings. 

She does not request the baby be made to stop crying, like the three passengers who all seem to have reached middle age with the belief that babies stop crying on request. 

She does not politely ask if she may please get off the plane now, like the unaccompanied minor, who reaches his limit 40 minutes into the delay and thinks that maybe the laser-tag party is a possibility after all. 

She does not demand she be allowed to disembark, along with her checked baggage, like the woman in a leopard print jumpsuit who has places she needs to be, who is never flying this airline again, but who finally allows herself to be placated, and then self-medicates so effectively she falls deeply asleep. 

She does not abruptly cry out in despair, "Oh, can’t someone do something?" like the red-faced, frizzy-haired woman sitting two rows behind the crying baby. It isn’t clear if she wants something done about the delay or the crying baby or the state of the planet, but it is at this point that the square-jawed man leaves his seat to present the baby with an enormous set of jangly keys. The man first demonstrates how pressing a particular button on one key will cause a red light to flash and the baby is stunned into delighted silence, to the teary-eyed relief of the mother, and everyone else. 

At no stage does the lady make a bitter-voiced performative phone call to tell someone that she is "stuck on a plane" "still here" "no way we’ll make our connection" "just go ahead without me" "we’ll need to reschedule" "I’ll have to cancel" "have fun without me!" "nothing I can do" "I know! It’s unbelievable." 

No one will remember hearing the lady speak a single word during the delay.

Not like the elegantly dressed man who says, "No, no, sweetheart, it will be tight, but I’m sure I’ll still make it" but you can tell by the anguished way he taps his phone against his forehead that he’s not going to make it, there’s no way. 

Not like the two 20-something friends who had been drinking prosecco at the airport bar on empty stomachs, and as a result multiple passengers in their vicinity learn the intimate details of their complex feelings about "Poppy:" a mutual friend who is not as nice as she would have everyone believe. 

Not like the two 30-something men who are strangers to each other but strike up a remarkably audible and extraordinarily dull conversation about protein shakes. 

The lady is traveling alone. 

She had no family members to aggravate her with their very existence, like the family of four who sit in gendered pairs: mother and young daughter, father and young son, all smouldering with rage over a fraught issue involving a phone charger. 

The lady has an aisle seat. Four D. She is lucky: it is a relatively full flight but she has scored an empty middle seat between her and the man in the window seat. A number of passengers in economy will later recall noting that empty middle seat with envy but they will not remember noting the lady. When they are finally cleared for takeoff the lady does not need to be asked to please place her seat in the upright position or to please push her bag under the seat in front of her. 

She does not applaud with slow sarcastic claps when the plane finally began to taxi towards the runway. 

During the flight, the lady does not cut her toenails or floss her teeth. 

She does not slap a flight attendant. 

She does not shout racist abuse.

She does not sing, babble or slur her words. 

She does not casually light up a cigarette as if it were 1974. 

She does not perform a sex act on another passenger. 

She does not strip. 

She does not weep.

She does not vomit.

She does not attempt to open the emergency door midway through the flight. 

She does not lose consciousness. 

She does not die. 

(All these things are possible.)  

One thing is clear: the lady is a lady. Not a single person will later describe her as a "woman" or a "female." Obviously no one will describe her as a "girl." 

There is uncertainty about her age. Possibly early 60s? Maybe in her 50s. Definitely in her 70s. Early 80s? As old as your mother. As old as your daughter. As old as your auntie. Your boss. Your university lecturer. The unaccompanied minor will describe her as a "very old lady." The elderly couple will describe her as a "middle-aged lady." 

Maybe it’s her grey hair that places her so squarely in the category of "lady." It is the soft silver of an expensive kitten. Shoulder length. Nicely styled. Good hair. "Good grey." The sort of grey that makes you consider going grey yourself! One day. Not yet. 

The lady is small and petite but not so small and petite as to require solicitousness. She does not attract benevolent smile or offers of assistance. Looking at her does not make you think of how much you miss your grandmother. Looking at her does not make you think anything at all. You could not guess her profession, personality or star sign. You could not be bothered. 

You wouldn’t say she was invisible as such.

Maybe semi-transparent. 

The lady is not strikingly beautiful or unfortunately ugly. She wears a pretty green and white patterned collared blouse tucked in at the waistband of slim-fitting grey pants. Her shoes are flat and sensible. She is not unusually pierced or bejewelled or tattooed. She has small silver studs in her ears and a silver brooch pinned to the collar of her shirt, which she often touches, as if to check that it is still there.

Which is all to say, the lady who will later become known as "The Death Lady" on the delayed 3.20pm flight from Sydney to Hobart, is not worthy of a second glance, not by anyone, not a single crew member, not a single passenger, not until she does what she does. 

Even then it takes longer than you might expect for the first person to shout, for the first person to begin filming, for call bells to start lighting up and dinging all over the cabin like a pinball machine. 

Excerpted from HERE ONE MOMENT by Liane Moriarty. Copyright © 2024 by Liane Moriarty. Excerpted by permission of Crown. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Here One Moment is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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HBO’s excellent “Big Little Lies,” based on the book by Liane Moriarty , plays off how uncertainty and low self-worth can make for a toxic combination. It is filled with mysteries—a new girl in town with a mysterious past, a murder mystery in which we don’t know the victim or killer, a mystery incident in a 1 st -grade class—but it is more about how these secrets work to break the already-thin ice on which these characters live than their traditional resolutions. With all seven episodes written by David E. Kelley and directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (“ Wild ,” “ Dallas Buyers Club ”), it is also a distinctly consistent vision, working more as a seven-part film than a traditional television series. It can sometimes reflect the soapier aspects of its source material, but there’s so much to like here, particularly in the talented ensemble, that you probably will be enjoying it too much to care.

Madeline Martha Mackenzie ( Reese Witherspoon ) is one of those arguably hyperactive women who means well but has trouble minding her own business. Perhaps it’s because her home life is stressful. Her husband Ed ( Adam Scott ) is a nice guy, but their marriage lacks a little passion, and Ed’s convinced he’s Martha’s second-best to her first husband Nathan ( James Tupper ), now remarried to the younger Bonnie ( Zoe Kravitz ). It’s bad enough that Bonnie looks amazing, but she’s getting closer now to Madeline & Nathan’s daughter Abigail ( Kathryn Newton ). Madeline takes on projects to try and keep herself happy, her latest being a controversial production of the play “Avenue Q” and a woman she meets on the way to the first day of school.

Said woman is Jane ( Shailene Woodley ), the new girl in town who pulls over and helps Madeline after she sees her trip. They form an instant friendship that’s intensified after an incident on that first day of school creates divisions in the community. Jane’s son is accused of something horrible by the daughter of a Monterey power player, Renata Klein ( Laura Dern ). Madeline comes to Jane’s defense, deepening the rifts in the circle of first-grader mothers.

Also on Madeline/Jane’s side is the gorgeous Celeste ( Nicole Kidman ), the envy of everybody in town. She seems to have it all—looks, money, beautiful children, and a handsome husband ( Alexander Skarsgard ) who brings the passion into their relationship. Of course, she hides a secret from everyone she knows. As does Madeline. As does Jane. And so on …

Did I mention somebody’s dead? “Big Little Lies” opens with a series of interrogations from supporting players in this Monterey Melodrama, all being asked questions about the key players and the roles they may have played in the death of someone on Trivia Night. We don’t know who’s dead. We don’t know who’s going to jail. But someone was brutally murdered during a high-profile charity event, and one of the brilliant aspects of Kelley’s approach is that we start to think the killer and victim could be absolutely anyone. The show seems to be suggesting that we are all a misunderstanding or moral error or two away from being killed by our neighbors.

The first episode of “Big Little Lies” is a heady mix of style, beauty, and mystery. Vallee and his regular cinematographer Yves Bélanger shoot Monterey like it’s the French Riviera. They love sunsets and gorgeous architecture and expensive fashion and kitchens that cost more than your entire house. It is a series dripping with opulence; the premiere in particular is intoxicating. And yet they waste no time to highlight the insidious dissatisfaction of this world. Almost every person in this series is what I like to call a “Grass is Greener Person.” Even in these lives that would make most people jealous, they’re itching for something else, trying to find that elusive thing that will truly make them happy—always talking about moving, changing jobs, cheating, finding a new school, etc. And they’re often pinning their happiness on the success of their children—so the drama at school, even though it’s just first-grade, becomes an amplified vision of their own insecurities. Their self-worth hinges so much on how other people see them that even a drama involving their children sends them spiraling.

Of course, gender roles also play a major part in “Big Little Lies,” from the controlling husband to the relatively useless one to the insecure one. These are men often in constant need of attention, as childish as the first-graders (arguably more so given how mature these kids are presented). They can also be violent and horrible. And the show sometimes feels like it’s pushing against a trivialization of domestic violence, but that’s from the source material, and something the cast here does everything they can to avoid, bringing truth to melodrama.

About that cast—it’s hard to know where to begin in terms of singling people out because everyone here is so remarkably good. Belanger’s spectacular cinematography—few people have ever used California sunlight this well—is the element of the show that will be underrated, and Kelley’s gift for dialogue has rarely been this sharp, but it’s the ensemble that makes “Big Little Lies” an event. In smaller roles, Dern, Kravitz, and Scott are fantastic, but it’s the trio at the front of the show that keep it fascinating, particularly Nicole Kidman. She finds something heartbreakingly real about a woman who everyone thinks is perfect to a degree that she feels she has no one with which to share her pain. It’s one of Kidman’s best performances (and I could say the same about Witherspoon and Woodley).

Moral superiority often hides personal insecurity. It’s not a new theme or even a particularly daring one, but “Big Little Lies” offers a modern take that is consistently engaging and artistically rewarding. Narratively, it could have been one or two episodes shorter than its seven-episode length (the plot doubles back and spins its wheels a few times). But this world has been so fully-realized and perfectly calibrated by the cast and crew that you’ll probably wish it was one or two episodes longer. 

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders

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Film credits.

Big Little Lies (2017)

420 minutes

Reese Witherspoon as Madeline Martha Mackenzie

Nicole Kidman as Celeste Wright

Shailene Woodley as Jane Chapman

Laura Dern as Renata Klein

Adam Scott as Ed Mackenzie

Zoë Kravitz as Bonnie Carlson

Alexander Skarsgård as Perry Wright

James Tupper as Nathan

Iain Armitage as Ziggy Chapman

• Jean-Marc Vallée

Writer (novel)

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• David E. Kelley

Cinematography

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Review: In ‘Wicked Little Letters,’ the shock value feels about a century too late

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Women everywhere have many reasons to curse a blue streak. Countless reasons. They don’t need excuses, because sometimes cursing is fun. But if you need a movie to explain this to you, over and over, like a potty-mouthed PSA for speaking one’s mind, the breathless British period comedy “Wicked Little Letters,” starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley and directed by Thea Sharrock, is at the ready with its occasionally amusing but ultimately worn-to-the-bone joke.

The film declares up front, “This is more true than you’d think,” and indeed, during the years after World War I, a poison-pen scandal in an English seaside town turned filthy language into national news. Someone’s been sending ornately vicious, profanity-laced, unsigned missives (“foxy-ass old whore” is as nice as this newspaper can print) to the residents of Littlehampton, the brunt of them landing at the doorstep of pious spinster Edith Swan (Colman). While her poor mother (Gemma Jones) weeps and authoritarian father (Timothy Spall) sputters with rage and the police drag their heels, Edith assumes the countenance of brave-faced, sympathy-slurping martyr in a worrisomely godless postwar society.

They were friends first. Now Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley want a franchise

The Oscar-nominated costars of “The Lost Daughter” have a new project together, “Wicked Little Letters,” as well as a giddy way of making each other laugh.

March 29, 2024

Of course, everyone knows who the sender must be: Edith’s next-door neighbor (and ex-friend) Rose Gooding (Buckley), a boisterous, barefoot, widowed Irish migrant and single mom who is eventually arrested and put on trial for libel with no evidence save her lower-class status and all-occasions forwardness. (As Rose shrewdly puts it to the authorities, “Do I look like the anonymous type to you?”) The situation doesn’t sit well with police officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan), who must defy her chauvinistic colleagues to take matters into her own hands and see that justice is served.

Not that there’s any real mystery to who the epistolary vulgarian is, despite “Wicked Little Letters” presuming there is until about halfway through, when Johnny Sweet’s sketch-thin screenplay turns toward ho-hum caper mechanics to nab the culprit. It’s no spoiler to say hypocrisy is key to the crime, since the film’s cartoonish binary — free-spiritedness good, repression bad — screams it from the beginning. The blessing is that Buckley, Colman, Spall and Vasan are expert enough that dimensional character work still peeks through the vibe of cookie-cutter idiosyncrasy.

Even in a role that’s more like a big Irish wink, Buckley is always watchable, although you half expect her expletive-thick lines to lead right into a bawdy musical number. But it’s Colman’s virtuosity with facial nuances — that is, when the camera holds on her long enough to get them — that hint at the more fascinating, thornier, Jamesian character study to be explored: a self-deluder fractured by misogyny both open and internalized.

It’s all briskly paced, benefiting from suitably evocative sets, costumes and the bit-part bite of Eileen Atkins (as one of Edith’s friends). But Sharrock’s approach is frustratingly compartmentalized, set on keeping the wacky part wacky and the serious part serious. There’s also misplaced trust in the entertainment value of squeezing every ounce of shock from the letters (such language!), while counting on knowing nods about what the key message is (female emancipation!).

Not unlike the genre of naughty village quirk that gave us “Calendar Girls,” “Wicked Little Letters” is benignly enjoyable in its take on a true story of hidden feelings, farcical expression and righteous action. But considering the zesty elements in play, it’s a shame we’re so far removed from the heyday of Britain’s Ealing Studios and its oddball comedies like “Passport to Pimlico,” “Whiskey Galore” and “The Ladykillers,” in which eccentricity, the authenticity of human pluck and spiteful black humor were more smoothly brewed.

'Wicked Little Letters'

Rating: R, for language throughout and sexual material Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes Playing: Now in limited release

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Read Like the Wind

2 novels about uncomfortably close families.

People cross boundaries in Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Spell” and Penelope Lively’s “The Photograph.”

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By Leah Greenblatt

Dear readers,

“My sister. My daughter. … She’s my sister and my daughter!” If you’ve ever seen Roman Polanski’s sun-bleached neo-noir “Chinatown,” which turns 50 this year, you can’t forget it: a defiant, tear-stained Faye Dunaway wailing the sordid secret of her troubled-heiress character’s life while Jack Nicholson’s flinty detective Jake Gittes slaps her halfway to next Saturday.

I thought of that scene again recently after reading a much-passed-around piece in The Atlantic about the surprising prevalence of incest that has been exposed by test results from popular ancestry sites like 23AndMe. And I felt smugly justified in never getting around to swabbing myself with one of the two DNA kits, still languishing somewhere at home in a junk drawer, that I’d received as thoughtful but vaguely terrifying gifts. Better, perhaps, to never know that you are 6.7 percent Slavic highlander, and also that your great-uncle is actually your grandpa.

The two books in this week’s column are not about that sort of flowers-in-the-attic depravity (or even the highbrow provocation of literary fire-starters like Kathryn Harrison’s fevered 1997 memoir “The Kiss” ). But they do cast a sometimes-discomfiting eye on blood ties: tales of romance and longing that transgress most good people’s idea of familial propriety, and sometimes cross much starker lines. Should you feel like a creep reading these on the subway? Forget it, Jake ; it’s fiction.

“The Spell,” by Alan Hollinghurst

Fiction, 1998

Six years before he won a Booker Prize for “The Line of Beauty,” Hollinghurst produced a slimmer, more glimmery snapshot of gay life in London at the turn of the millennium. Alex, a diffident Scotsman in civil service, still pines for his former live-in boyfriend Justin, an out-of-work actor who treats the whole world like an adoring stage. Justin has abruptly left him for Robin, a handsome older architect with a failed marriage, a cottage in Dorset and a 22-year-old son named Danny who shares both his father’s enviable bone structure and his sexuality.

When Alex falls for Danny — and the heedless world of pretty party boys and MDMA he introduces him to — the book’s power dynamics shift and slide. The stakes remain relatively low, insofar as nothing more than broken hearts, battered dignity and the fate of certain parcels of real estate are ever really at play. (Though AIDS certainly exists in this major metropolitan center in the late ’90s, it is rarely discussed or even alluded to.) But Hollinghurst, an aesthete of the highest order, dusts his narrative in equal parts body glitter and “Brideshead Revisited”-level repartee.

Beds are hopped and boundaries blurred, both father and son a lure to prospective paramours who may be torn between the two (or worse, enjoy the naughtiness of that proximity a little too much). Most of all, though, and despite frequent evidence to the contrary, it is a book in love with love. Of the tender, hapless Alex, Hollinghurst swoons: “He was astounded that Danny, who was a ravishing idea of his, could actually be standing in front of him, the perfect and only embodiment of himself, reconstituted in every detail, remembered and unremembered — after a moment, he had to look away.” Reader, I could not.

Read if you like: Overheard gossip, house music, long drives to the country on bank holidays. Available from: A circa-2000 Penguin reissue on Amazon, or perhaps a guilty ex’s discard pile.

“The Photograph,” by Penelope Lively

Fiction, 2003

Kath, the lovely cipher at the center of Lively’s 13th novel, is one of those sparkly people who seems to seduce effortlessly, just by moving through the world. She is already dead when the book opens, for reasons readers will have to wait some 200 pages to learn in any detail, but her presence still lingers in the hearts and minds of those she left behind. And more specifically in the landing cupboard of her former home, where her Welsh professor husband, Glyn, finds an old brown envelope labeled “DON’T OPEN — DESTROY.”

Does Glyn obey? Ah, what a short book that would be. What he finds inside is a photograph of Kath at some group outing long ago, her hand clandestinely clasped by her sister’s husband, Nick. That sister, Elaine, is six years older and Kath’s constitutional opposite, a successful garden designer whose cool gravitas balances out Nick’s fleeting, flaky charms. Or at least it did until Glyn, with an academic’s dogged quest for empirical proof and hard evidence, goes in search of the story behind the picture, and shares his discovery far and wide.

His revelation, to no one’s surprise but Glyn’s, is a wrecking ball. Marriages teeter and collapse and old friends awkwardly collide; a coterie of admirers and bystanders come out of the woodwork to color in the deeper, more poignant shades of Kath’s seemingly blessed and frivolous life. It doesn’t take a private investigator to see where all this is headed, but Lively finds plenty of small, telling truths in her deftly sketched portraits of English bourgeoisie. “Kath had gaiety and verve,” one supporting character reflects, “but she was not especially wise, nor clever, nor well-informed…. She simply was — as a flower is, or a bird.”

Read if you like: Ian McEwan, landscape design, quaint but spicy Acorn TV shows about misbehaving British villagers. Available from: Used-book retailers and assorted landing cupboards, obviously.

Why don’t you …

Revisit another seminal scandalizer, Josephine Hart’s slim self-destruction-by-sleeping-with-your-son’s-girlfriend debut “Damage” — or watch the 1992 Louis Malle film adaptation starring Jeremy Irons and a young, ridiculously luminous Juliette Binoche?

Revel in the shameless moral relativity (and yes, the incidental Greek-island travelog) of the prize-winning Swedish novelist Hanna Johansson’s queer-Lolita reverie “Antiquity,” newly translated for English-speaking readers?

Inhale a long lungful of temperate spring air before plunging into Raven Leilani’s uneasy, darkly comedic 2020 story “Breathing Exercise” ?

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