Liane Moriarty Was Terrified To Write A Big Little Lies Sequel. She Did It Anyway

0:00Speaker 1:I still can't believe I had the audacity to say I've written this role for Eryl, and then getting that text that said, we've got you, Meryl, you're a bit witchy. Well, we'll see if we can get Timothy Shallimey for my daughter.

0:15Speaker 2:Hello. I'm Katelinebrook, host of No Filter. Today's guest is someone many of you will already feel like you know, even if you've never met her, because she's spent decades writing your inner life back to you. Leanne Moriarty. Leanne is the author behind Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, Apples Never Fall, and now Big Little Truths, her first ever sequel, returning to the world and characters that made her a household name. Leanne and I go a fair way back, and in this conversation we get into everything how she actually writes a book, the terror of returning to characters people already love and know what it was like watch Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Meryl Streep step into roles she wrote in her head first, and the strange, very specific pressure of writing a sequel everyone has been demanding for years. We also talk about family. Leanne is one of three sisters who all became authors, her own breast cancer, scare, marriage, motherhood, teenagers, turning sixty and why after everything, she still can't stop herself imagining what the critics might say before she's even finished a page. It's

1:36Speaker 2:funny and candid and full of the kind of detail only Leanne Moriarty could give you. This is Leanne Moriarty on No Filter. Leanne Moriarty, Welcome to No Filter. Thank you, Kate. Now you just made me laughing for what we were talking about previous podcasts that I've done with another writer, and you said, I don't want to say anything interating, you don't want to reveal anything about yourself.

2:07Speaker 1:I just don't want to wake up in the middle of the night with that feeling sick, as if as if I'd got drunk at a dinner party too much. And because I do, I want to chat with you. But then in the middle of the night, I think, why would you think that people would even care about that?

2:27Speaker 2:But people do because you have been instrumental in creating so many worlds for people that are so richly inhabited that it's natural for people to want to know where it comes from.

2:47Speaker 1:Yes, I know, and I know that. Actually, I was telling somebody the story yesterday of one of my favorite authors is Elizabeth bergh Right, and she's an American author. And I was once picked up at the airport. They have these people in America who escort you around when you're on book tour. There always, and they always want to take you to lunch because then they can put that on their expenses. Yes, and you don't want to go to lunch because you're feeling nervous about the event that you want to go to.

3:20Speaker 2:Anyway, this man he.

3:21Speaker 1:Picked me up and he mentioned his partner was Elizabeth Burke, and I was so excited. And then I said, I love her. And then he said, well, we can go and pick her up right now. And then I said, this is a part I can't believe that. I said, I said, do you think I could see her kitchen? I don't know, And I'm not the sort of person who would say that, but it's because she writes so beautifully about domestic life, and I had a vision in my head of what her kitchen would look like. And he said, no, you can't. I think he said it was very nice. And then yet then anyway, then there was this thing with me wanting to put her in the front seat because she she so you stopped, did get her?

4:15Speaker 2:Did he call her? Did you hear the call? Yes?

4:18Speaker 1:And she was saying sure, and then and then I was saying, well, I'll get out because she's got to sit in the front, and he was saying no, no, you stay in the front. And then we stopped. And I was so determined that she would get in the front that I threw myself out of the car.

4:35Speaker 2:Uh. But we weren't there yet. We just stopped at.

4:38Speaker 1:Her, just get back in, and I stayed in the front seat. But so I do understand, I I yeah, I wanted to see Elizabeth Berg's kitchen.

4:51Speaker 2:All right, So Leanne moriarty, we want to see your kitchen. About that, to see your bathroom, We want to see your bedroom. You know a lot about the bedroom because it's not enough sex. Well books, Okay, so because these open door and closed door, which is a very interesting thing I've only recently learned about publishing. What do you mean, Well, so in a sex scene, Oh, okay, that either it's open door, which is where you basically see everything, you're treated to everything that's going on, or it's closed door, they kiss, then they wake up the next morning and the curtains. Yes, I have never heard that before. Yes, someone closed door, you're very closed door. Well, but you give a lot of hints about what's happened.

5:43Speaker 1:Well, I remember in hre one moment I said something about them having astonishing sex, and then a reviewer said that it's described as astonishing sex, but you never see that. Yeah, And I thought, well, I feel like everybody can have their own version of astonishing.

6:00Speaker 2:And I couldn't do it. I could not do it. Okay, well, look what I have here. This was such a thrill. This is Big Little Truths. There's another book you might have heard of it called Big Little Lies, right, and this came this is a sequel to that, So your first sequel. It came in brilliant, like brilliant, the most brilliant packaging, with the little zipper that you aren't to dover, and then you're one rappish and to take people back into a world that you've created. But that means a lot to people is fraught with I imagine all sorts of terrorists, which is probably why I've never done it before.

6:55Speaker 2:And why did you do it?

6:58Speaker 1:I did it because everybody was asking about I have to admit it was in a large part because people were asking about a new season of Big Little Lives. And so if they were going to do it anyway without me, then I'd rather they did it.

7:16Speaker 2:Oh, they couldn't do it without you. Oh they could, could they? Yeah?

7:20Speaker 1:They were allowed to for sure, so they could. And then I had also thought because Big Little Lies was I wrote it when my children were little, starting school, And then I had started to think over the years that because I had my children quite late in life, so my girlfriends are all a little bit ahead of me, and I was thinking that when the teenage years come, it feels like there could be a lot of material for me, which there is.

7:54Speaker 2:Which there is. Yeah, but I say it's fraught with terrors because all of us, I think, have been scarred by and just like that, Oh okay, but you know what I mean. But I liked and just like that, is it? Well? Good, I'm happy for you. I'm very happy for you. I was just happy to see them again. They too, friends, But sometimes you were like, oh I know they were friends, Oh no, friends, Like I know, there were things, but it was almost I didn't care because I was just so happy to see them.

8:31Speaker 1:But yes, it's fraught. I'm glad you didn't say that to me before I started writing.

8:35Speaker 2:A little Well, no, because but no one puts more pressure on you than you put on I know, I know. And when something's been so deeply and irrevocably loved and around the world and it's drawn the attention of you know, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman and they're actually publicly lobbying for you to write the sequel, yes, that's an enormous amount of pressure.

9:01Speaker 1:And what's really for is that people are seeing they're seeing Reese Witherspoon in their mind's eye, or some people are. And I'm so when I was writing it, I could see my version of Madeline, and I could see Reese's version of Madeline. And I know even my editor at one point she was writing a blurb and she wrote Madeleine Madeline Celeste and then she said something about Zoe and.

9:34Speaker 3:I said, you you were so clearly seeing Zoe in your mind's eye, Zoe kraviatz In when you were reading it.

9:46Speaker 2:Because now it's it's such a balancing feast because you're balancing the characters as they originally were. You're holding them. We also now know from the dramatization of it, we do. We know Rees with a spoon, and we know Nicole, we know Zowe. Yes, yeah, how did you separate them? So I, in your you write a really lovely prologue where you explain, which is brilliant, that what you have written is the sequel to the book.

10:24Speaker 1:It has to follow on from the book. But sometimes that was tricky. So for example, even I had forgotten that Madeline had another child called Fred. Right, so I was an older and in.

10:38Speaker 2:America, and I'll just send you off to America. Well, for a while, I was thinking, I just put him in his bedroom, right, I was thinking I could even be quite metter and have somebody saying it's like Fred doesn't even exist because he's playing.

10:51Speaker 1:Video games all day. And there were a lot of little things like that. So, for example, the character of merryl I didn't see the character of Mary Louise who because she was not in the first book and I created her. So when I was writing Mary Louise, I was completely seeing Meryl Stretreet. But also I had thought I didn't name Perry's mother in the first book, so I was safe to call her Mary Louise, who I had named myself anyway for season two, so I felt I owned her. But then I suddenly found that I had actually named I had said Perry's mother was a twin, so there was actually she could have been Gene or something else. So then I had to write a little strange explanation for why she's now Mary Lais, and it sort of worked. But I remember my editor writing, oh, this is fun, but do.

11:57Speaker 2:We need it?

11:58Speaker 1:And we do need it. And because readers are amazing, readers will find will find things.

12:05Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and then I love it because.

12:10Speaker 1:They say to you, but why why is this? And and they're not they're not complaining. They really want to know, tell me as if it's real, and so I don't want If you find something that's not quite right, then you can no longer suspend disbelief because now you realize somebody just wrote this, so you can't ye, so everything has That's why when readers say, well, these flowers don't grow at this time of year, and say, I know my mother told me that. They were saying, but why as if I need to give an explanation.

12:48Speaker 2:They're flowers? That did you with flowers here? What were the flowers? I'm sweet peas, I think, yeah, And then I really need to read your books because that she would pick up for And so when you so, when was was there a moment where you decided to enter back into the into the world.

13:12Speaker 1:Yes, there was a moment because I had actually started writing another book with a storyline that's significant in this book. So oh so we agreed it's okay for spoilers. So yeah, yeah, it's okay for spoiler. So there is the history teacher in this book, and I had I had that concept because I was sort of obsessed by a high profile story in the papers, and so I wanted to explore the motivations of sort of a villain. And I won't say what the story is, but creditory predatory villain.

13:58Speaker 2:Yes, I think it's good not to say, because I was remember Matt Damon and Ben Affleck getting into a lot of trouble when they did that movie. Oh and they were inspired by.

14:09Speaker 1:Goodwill Hunting No No No, by Amanda Knox. Oh sorry, it wasn't Ben, it was just Matt. Okay, and she was really offended. But and I sort of thought, oh, I can understand though. For them, it's just an interesting news story and that gives you a fictional idea at a launching place, Yes, exactly. And so I could have said that about some other things where I thought, Okay, I'm not never going to say that because it's people's real lives, whereas I've just read about it, and.

14:42Speaker 2:They were, oh, heal, yes and fascinating. You can explore terrain, yes, if it's not necessarily cemented into the grim reality of the earth.

14:53Speaker 1:Exactly exactly right. So I had this idea, and I had started. I think I'd written about two chapters set in a high school, and then there was all the talk of really, we really do want to season three, and then I suddenly thought, well, I had always said I could write about the kids when they were teenagers. I could make this storyline happen to some of my bigger class.

15:21Speaker 2:And how had they lived with you? The characters in that time, like we was Celested always with you, it was Madeline always with.

15:30Speaker 1:You, except I was writing new books. I let them go. So I was filled with joy from Apple's Never Fall, and then all my characters from here one moment so yes, So no, I don't think, no, they weren't. Really they were because all my characters then I put them, I put them away, and I might sometimes think, oh, I wonder what happened to so and so. But especially when I'm writing a new book, I'm completely absorbed with the new.

16:01Speaker 2:People because it almost feels like there should be a some sort of formal ceremony. But don't you think to bid them say goodbye? Yes?

16:16Speaker 1:Well, I always say when I'm writing a new book, I miss my old characters because they've become so easy to write by the time that I finish it. And so I don't like my new characters because I'm getting to know them and I don't ask how they talk yet. But yes, that's true, there could be a little ceremony. But to be honest, by the time I finished writing a book, I sort of hate the whole thing. I can't bear to see another word.

16:43Speaker 2:And yet you continue to challenge yourself.

16:49Speaker 1:This was Yes, this was a real challenge with them because what I realized was that they by doing this. So I had my high school storyline, but then I had all my characters had these really complicated backstories that I had created for Big Little Lies, So I felt like they were all dragging these backstories along with them that and I wanted the sequel to stand on its own, because I think that's really important. If it's been ages since you've read them.

17:22Speaker 2:You actually say that in the book that if you haven't read Big Little Lie, yes, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. If you've read it and you can't remember it, it.

17:30Speaker 1:Doesn't okay too, But that was hard to do that because you want to sort of refer to things that had happened in their lives without and in a natural way, not begin with and sons who push somebody off a balcony. Yes it has her friend they share. You know, it's almost to be embarrassing because the storylines sound a bit soap oprouche. Yes exactly, but it's like if it's like you're dating someone new again. And I always think one of the most terrible things about that is having to.

18:08Speaker 2:Explain yourself, yes, and all the relationships and whatever the means and what happens.

18:14Speaker 1:Yes, yes, that's true, and so yeah, that's right. People could have just as complicated backstories. But although this is pretty rare that.

18:24Speaker 2:Yes, yes, that's because it's fiction, a murder, and then that there's a severed finger in a box in a new school, which is also not a spoiler because it happens at the very start and it's exactly sort of the premise of the yes of the book. And so when you start to recreate that world and then move the story forward, what does that process look like for you? Is it a are you sitting down with character notes?

19:01Speaker 4:Is it?

19:02Speaker 2:Is it more plot driven?

19:05Speaker 1:It's nah, it's neither. Really, I am I always Well, my normal process with the new book is to buy a really beautiful notebook, a hardcover moll skin. Yes, yes, it's just got to be expensive. And then I like to start to write a few notes. So I did post on Instagram some of the I found some of the old notes when I was starting to write big little lies, and I wrote I did write the word licee whares. And then somebody put in the comments, Okay, I thank you. Yes, I know it's not nice. So normally yeah, I do, but but I never then do the whole plan. So my sister Jackie, because she's an author two and her pres exactly yes, and her process, and she has an amazing book I'm called time Travel for Beginners, which everybody is going to adore because I love time travel, and I guess she has to because and that's why I've never written a time travel book, because of the logistics of it. Right, So she plans everything, and I always think, maybe I'll start to I'll do a proper plan, but I can't stand it. So I write a few little notes maybe this will happen, maybe this, maybe that, and then I just have to start writing.

20:35Speaker 1:So I just have to say chapter one as if it's from the beginning and you write chronologically. I do, but I always want to make it clear that it's not like some of those authors who say it all just comes into their head perfectly sounding a little bit, but it doesn't because I'm working it out as I go. Ah, so your problem solving. Yes, yes, that's right. And so I always have this separate document called things I need to fix because as I'm working out. As a result of this decision, now I'm going to have to go back and change.

21:12Speaker 2:Is exactly. So you mentioned your sister Jacqueline, and you've also got Nikolay is also an author. She is, yes, and there are four girls in your family. And two boys.

21:24Speaker 1:No, five, five girls, one boy.

21:27Speaker 2:Three of the five of you are authors. Yes, yes, it's just let's just work out how that happened.

21:37Speaker 1:But I think it's well, you know, it's like the tennis players and like yes, families. And I also think whenever anybody writes a book, there's sort of a ripple effect because then people think, oh, actually you can do that, it's real. And so Jackie started the ripple effect because they're not filled with envy and so and then it seems like something you could do.

22:06Speaker 2:And so your first book that you wrote was a children's book. Oh I tried, Yes, that that was probably.

22:14Speaker 1:Yes, the the Animal Olympics. It was right, and still has not been has been published. And have you looked at it?

22:23Speaker 2:No, I don't even know where do you think it should should have been published? I thought, I don't know. I thought it was fun.

22:32Speaker 1:So it was around the year two thousand, so it was sort of it was before the year two thousand because I was inspired by the Sydney Olympics, and I was interested in all the animals that would would win the Olympics. So for example, the flea would win the high jump and things like that.

22:50Speaker 2:Not the life, not the nice. Yeah, I'll be back with Leon after this short break. When your younger sister got her the first publishing deal and you said it unlocked in you this envy, what life were you living prior to that point?

23:20Speaker 1:I was an advertising copywriter, so I was working for myself, and I had over the years written a few first chapters of books that hadn't gone anywhere. And I had also written a children's book for my younger sister, Nicola, for her tenth birthday when I was so she's fifteen years younger than me, so I was twenty five, and so that was the only thing I'd actually finished because it was a gift for her. And so that did get published eventually. So that was called the Petrophone problem with Princess Petronella. So that's the only thing I finished.

24:06Speaker 1:And so yes, it wasn't until Jackie did it. And we'd always said when we were little that we wanted to write books.

24:13Speaker 2:And your father had encouraged you by you a dollar. Yes, he said, I'll give you your first publishing deals, right, and he did. And who was the most prolific thing when you were incentivized with a dollar Finnish manuscript.

24:30Speaker 1:I don't know, actually, I mean it was only for a short It definitely happened. It sort of became part of our origin story as if he did it for years and years. I think we probably only just both of us wrote a couple of stories and then we moved on with our lives. And I've definitely still got volume two of the Secret of dead Man's Island?

25:00Speaker 2:What was it? The secret?

25:02Speaker 1:That was because it was really inspired by Anna Blaton. A lot of smuggling, and I didn't really know what smuggling.

25:09Speaker 2:Smugglers and they were always on the coast of corn Water, yes.

25:14Speaker 1:Which I've been to now week to Cornwall. Because I was so obsessed with with Enna Blaton. The children found it the most boring holiday they've ever had.

25:26Speaker 2:What what was it that spoke to you about Enid Blyton? I think?

25:32Speaker 1:But why children always loved Anna Blaton was because she always had the adults out of the way and then they had these amazing adventures.

25:41Speaker 2:The fantastic the famous Five Secret seven, and also because she was such a beautiful writer in terms of evoking what what the kids ate? Yes?

25:57Speaker 1:Oh, yes, there's a lot of food, Yes, I see I haven't picked one up in a while. I remember picking up one of the Narnia books, The Dawn Treader, and realizing that the language was quite simple, whereas my imagination I could taste the salt of the sea. And sometimes I think children's imaginations are so much.

26:27Speaker 2:Richer than perhaps an adult. I just need to drop a sea, yeah, and they'll grow the sea at all, Whereas I felt like with that scene, now I'd need a lot more words to give me what I could see. But yeah, obviously they're amazing, because otherwise anybody could just write a children's book and the children would pick it up. So obviously there was something really special about what they did, But it just wasn't as amazing as I thought it would be when I picked it up. When you so, when you got your first book published? Which book was that?

27:05Speaker 2:Three Wishes? Right? How was that moment for you, that little girl who'd always wanted to be a writer? Really with the two writing sisters, how was that moment? And how did you find out that you were getting published? Was it a phone call or a letter? The main thing I remember is that I remember the phone call from my agent, Fiona English, and I don't actually remember what she said. My memory is always that I played the voicemail to one of my best friends and that she I can see her face as she listened to the call, and then she grabbed my arm because she was so excited for me. So I think she was obviously just saying yes, so I will represent you, and that she liked the book. So I can remember that more than the moment that I actually got the deal.

28:07Speaker 2:It was just seeing my friend Marissa's face yea, and someone recognizing yes, yeah, that which you had dared to dream and execute.

28:17Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yeah, and was almost enough that she said it was good? I mean what it wouldn't have been enough?

28:26Speaker 2:Terrible? I can't sell it. Yes, but sometimes I think you need that in you, just sometimes you just need someone who's going to believe in you. How did you know that you were worth believing in so because there's rejection and rejection, and yet you persisted.

28:51Speaker 1:What got me to finish Three Wishes was because I was doing it as part of a master's degree. So you were just in a group of people. So I could have achieved exactly this being in a writer's group maybe, but you'd have to come along each week. And read out, or maybe we didn't read it out, maybe we sent it to each other.

29:13Speaker 2:I can't was this way you had to write thirty thousand weeks?

29:16Speaker 1:Yes, write, Yes, So I think I owe a lot to them because they'd be saying nice things about it, so about the So they were believing in me. So it wasn't like I've heard about those American MFAs were apparently they're brutal and they say, you know, they said they're really critical, which it would not have worked for me. I needed these They were all women, and they were all just saying lovely things, and we want to know what happens next.

29:47Speaker 2:So that's what got me. There is something that you have because I was I was thinking about you're writing when I was reading this book, and I was thinking, what is it? Because yes, you create these worlds and they're so vivid, and even you recalling your girlfriend's hand on your arm, you've got just a beautiful recall of human moments. But overall, and because of course the characters are ten years older now and they're perimenopausal. But when you talk about such things and there's a really funny Madeline with bunions, and you know, just everything, everything flying at her at once, and even though you talk about the tribulations that are very relatable, there's an optimism that you have that imbues your work. That means that even when things are hard and the characters going through things that are hard, there's an uplift to it. That's a gift, thank you.

31:08Speaker 1:It is that intentional. It's definitely not intentional, and I know, and actually that doesn't work for some readers because I think some readers might feel that it's too flippant. I don't I don't mean it though.

31:23Speaker 2:In a in a you know what's her name, who was always just with the teapot, who was always all rah rah, Pollyanna, I don't mean it, Pollyanna sort of what. No, I know, you don't Yeah, I don't know. I don't I don't know. It's like I trust you. Yeah.

31:42Speaker 1:People have said that to me before, and readers have just recently an older woman, I don't know, I said, older woman, I should probably the same, just me, and she said, I know, I can, I know, I'm safe with you. And I took that to mean I'm not going to do anything, You're not going to get to the end, and I'm trying to think of something. There's some books where I get angry, and to me it's a betrayal. It's a betrayal, yes, And to me it's that's when I, oh, this is my theory. Terrible things do happen in the real world, and more than one horrible thing can happen to a person in the real world. Yes, and life is not fair. And then you can say then you might say, well, how could God or whoever you believe in could let that happen? And if I'm reading a book and too many terrible things are happen happening, then I think, well, you the author, I'm suddenly taken out of the story, and I think that's not right.

33:00Speaker 1:You should not have let those terrible things.

33:03Speaker 2:Happened to them, because we're at your mercy.

33:05Speaker 1:Yes, And also that that idea of well, this is the way it happens in the real world. And oh and also this is why I'm a commercial writer, because that idea that in real life, endings are messy and and so therefore they can just stop. In some books and at the exple yes, nothing's resolved. But that's why I think we read for the pleasure of a story is things completions are tied up that feeling and that you end on a sense of hope. And so sometimes I read a book and I think, I understand that was beautiful, and I understand that was probably the right thing to do. But if it was me, I would have said and then it was okay, right, yeah, they were all everything was worked out.

33:55Speaker 2:So you know, I actually noted in the book where you said that that bad things. There's not a law that says only one bad thing can happen that once papered with wisdom, papered with wisdom. But and in fact that happens in the book.

34:17Speaker 1:Yes, but yes it does, but not I think I still think readers will, yes, forgive me for that.

34:28Speaker 2:Madeleine, and I have to I thought of you when I read when Madeleine discovers a lump in her breast on the is it the day of her birthday, her fiftieth, or the night before or the morning or the morning, And I thought of you because you had a similar experience. Yes, although I didn't find a lump, I just had the the mammogram the.

34:58Speaker 1:I got I got an email, so you need to was it an email? Yes, because I was away on holidays, saying you need to come back or you need to do something. And so you just had a routine, yes, a routine yes. And then a very stern woman called me. She was she was cross with me. I think she thought I was not going to take it seriously, but I knew I could tell that there was going to be something. And then when I had the So then I went and I got the biopsy, and I can always remember the lovely woman who was doing it. She said something like, oh I had I had breast cans.

35:45Speaker 1:Oh I had no, She said, I had this sort of biopsy. So she was explaining what would happen, so you'll feel this and you'll feel that.

35:54Speaker 2:Oh.

35:54Speaker 1:And then I said, and so was yours? Was yours benign? And she said no, but it was all it was all okay, And I thought, I can tell mine's not.

36:05Speaker 2:How did you know? You said before even when you had the mammogram, you were like there's something there or oh no, no, no. It was just when I got that email, I thought she's not going to be good. And because my sister had been through which freakster my middle sister, yes, not one of my writing sister yeah. Yeah, her name's Katie.

36:25Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and she had to have much more invasive treatment than I did having.

36:32Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, when you went through that. I've heard you talk about it before, and you it's almost like it was not as significant as it well, because yes, because she had to go through it, to go through so much more, and you compare with your sister's not that anybody was saying you.

36:58Speaker 1:And certainly she was not trying to downplay it in any way, but I guess I was downplaying it a bit. So that's why I think I probably told that story of the school mother and I kept on referring back to my sister and then and I say, it's fine, but my sister. And then she said, but I want to hear about you, not your sister. That was really nice, right, yeah yeah. And then how do you think that affected you? Because I love in the book. I love it, and also it's a it's just such an amazing emotional pivot.

37:38Speaker 2:When Madeline is given the all clear and then we find out that ED is like perilously seek How do you think that your experience, or even your sister's experience affected you when you come to rhyme things like that.

38:01Speaker 1:I think that I always write I'm very much in the world that I'm in. Yes, And so they say that the between forty five to sixty they call it snipers.

38:16Speaker 2:Ali, all these.

38:17Speaker 1:Things coming for you. So not just my sister and I, but people in our wider circle. So I think that it just and I never think, now I'm going to write about this. It's just naturally comes in, so that this is just. And I'm sure you're the same with your friends when you'll get together and you're talking about all your your maladies and your latest doctor's appointment.

38:48Speaker 2:We don't do malody talk. I really, I don't like me. I don't like talk. No, I don't like malady talk. No, I just don't like it. Oh so yeah, come on, it's no. No, I didn't like to know, like I'm a good fowl with a friend. Yes, but you know sometimes you're like, oh.

39:06Speaker 4:My god, you know, but yeah, but I mean there's just I've got to go to the physio for yeah, this and getting this checked, and so we all go through are you okay?

39:20Speaker 1:Have you followed up on that that appointment and so.

39:24Speaker 2:We're all safe. Yeah.

39:26Speaker 1:So now, so I think that's that's what.

39:29Speaker 2:I meant in your family, in your with your two kids and your husband. I mean, I guess it's different for the kids because they've they only know you as you and the evolution of you. But your husband, when he married you, knew that he was marrying Leanne Moriarty, but he didn't know who was going to be married to Leanne Moriarty? Did he? No? No? And how's that? How has that been for him?

40:01Speaker 1:Well? I think he really enjoys some aspects of it, so he I think he has more fun. For example, at some of the red carpet things we've been to, he'd be more relaxed because he's relaxed and he's just enjoying and he looks great. So we have pictures of him, so we we have never actually got around to getting married.

40:29Speaker 2:So so he's right, yeah, but I can't call him friend. He's your boyfriend. He's my husband. I think I've allowed to good boyfriend. But my parents used to have this thing with all of the kids that they have their wedding photos up on a wall, and so they in the end, because we've never got around to getting married, they got this picture of us at the premiere of Big little lies because we're all dressed up and it was funny to see because there's all the lovely, elegant photos.

41:09Speaker 1:So he really enjoys that part of it. And apart from that, yeah, I don't.

41:16Speaker 2:Does he read your books? He's not really a reader, so he did. I remember there was a whole thing.

41:23Speaker 1:When I very first met him, he was reading Three Wishes and because he felt he should have because he was courting me, and he made some comment about he was plowing through it. Also is because he was a farmer and.

41:44Speaker 2:Was trying to say no. As an ex farmer plowing, he's got positive connodations because interestingly, and I think I've told you this before, the two people that put me onto you as a writer, one was Husy yes, and one was my dad that's right, yes, And they both read The Husband's Secret Yeah yeah, and loved it. And that was I guess interesting because they didn't even think of the term chick lit no, which is wonderful.

42:27Speaker 1:But still when I have events, it's all it's women with an occasional lone man.

42:34Speaker 2:But well, you need to write a book about the Nazis and then the will World War two?

42:43Speaker 1:Oh well, I guess in some ways that there was not many happy happy endings, is there? Yeah? But yeah, there are a lot of male readers I know, and sometimes they've written to me or or they've just picked up the their partner's book. So and it should not be I read books written by men.

43:07Speaker 2:Well, this is always the thing that I'm struck by, that it seems that there's a more generosity for women to enter the world of interests of men than there seems to be the other way. But then maybe they see reading our books as like fossicking through our handbags. They're just they're monsters.

43:29Speaker 1:Yes, but yeah, and I don't know that my books are necessarily my husband's taste here.

43:35Speaker 2:What does he read? Not much of a reader, but what I did like non fiction or historical fiction.

43:41Speaker 1:He loved Kate Grenville's The Secret River, Yes, because I remember seeing her at a writer's festival and thinking, he likes you your book. So he's not so interested in that. He's always what's that thing?

43:59Speaker 2:He said? Once?

44:00Speaker 1:Oh, I know what, it's your job's easy. You just sit at your desk and you go tappity tappity tap feelings, feelings, feelings. So he's so interesting the feelings part of it, yes, or the tabberty tappings.

44:15Speaker 2:Stay with us. My conversation with Leanne continues after this break. If you were not going to be the writer that you are, who would you be? Oh?

44:28Speaker 1:If I could be another type of writer, Oh, I don't know who, but then I wouldn't. I always think that, and then I would think I don't, But then I would not have the pleasure of reading their books. You have the pleasure of reading your books, but that's a different sort of pleasure.

44:44Speaker 2:That's not you won't know them.

44:46Speaker 4:Hmmm.

44:49Speaker 1:I definitely I read oh well, and Tyler is the one. She's so she's my favorite author. And one of my favorite comments ever on a review was about me was she's like Aunt Tyler, not not quite as good. But I really love that because that to me. Men. I believed it, and I loved the way she She doesn't have to have much plot, not that much happens, but she writes so beautifully about just ordinary life. So that's who I'm always aspiring to be.

45:29Speaker 2:You also do that, though, because you it's if you're going to look at everybody's story, the manuche of what happens in the moments of their lives is so truthful and rich in detail. Are you storing nuts away for winter like a squirrel constantly? With moments? Yes?

46:00Speaker 1:Yes, But also I feel those those things come easy to me. I recall those. It's the parts that I struggle with are describing this room, or oh I can, or and I'm really I couldn't. I'm not good at landscape, or just how can I just stuff the real world. So that's where my husband helps her. For example, with Nine Perfect Strangers, I wanted a fake fire to be created when all the people at their heart they're stuck in a in a room. So I said, so, how would they do that? So he was he would helped me with it, doing the that have to get a waste paper basket and put that all. That sort of thing is what I struggle with.

46:54Speaker 2:But the little.

46:55Speaker 1:Moments I find those those are easy. But you can fake it. That's so I always remember with the Hypnotist love story, there's a house that I describe and people say to me, I love that house, but I really had to work and they see it so clearly, and I feel like they see it more clearly than I see it, because I'm not so good at that I had to research. It was a seventies style house, and I had to Those sentences did not come easy to try, but I could fake those two. That's the work, yes, exactly.

47:29Speaker 2:That's the heavy lifting which then moves you forward into a into smoother sailing. That's right.

47:37Speaker 1:And now the people are in the house and they're talking, and that's okay.

47:40Speaker 2:But you're writing of teenagers is and I have a house of four teenagers three now and it's unerringly accurate.

47:54Speaker 1:Well that's good. Yeah, my kids will say don't They were saying, don't even try. You won't get it right with a language, and I had to be. I was really aware of the fact that I couldn't use to too much slang because so quickly yes, next, nobody's this part is going to be.

48:12Speaker 2:Lit the kids when we talk like man y, yeah. Yeah. And what was the most difficult part to imagine in this book? Because it reads with an ease. I can't pick a part that was difficult for you to write. You know, sometimes you read a book and you know that that you can sort of see the work involved in getting to a point that's good.

48:40Speaker 1:The hardest part was definitely the backstories and and so that's where I'm very grateful to my editors, where they're so integrating those yes, and say it's it's too much backstory, you need to bring that in a bit later, to bring that in naturally. So that was the hardest part. I'm never so good at the the police procedural part at it. That's so for example, with Apple's Neverfore, what I was interested in was the idea of could you believe that your father could kill your mother? So thinking and four children and how each of them would perceive their parents' marriage. Yes, so I've found that so fascinating.

49:33Speaker 1:But then for that to be real, the mother's got to go missing, but I wasn't so interested. She has to go somewhere and the police have to investigate, but I wasn't so interested in that part, right, I just want the kids talking about but they do. They love each other and all the things that are parts of their childhood. So those parts are again where I have to work hard at it.

49:56Speaker 2:When you have done that work and you've received acclaim and then you get a phone call from Nicole Kidman's people saying we want to commission this, we want to get the rights for this, you've been down that road before. What does that feel like? Well, in the beginning, and it's every author dreams of it because it brings you more readers, and it's so hard even when you get started to just get a review in the local paper. And also it's just exciting to think of it being adapted.

50:45Speaker 2:But it's never that.

50:47Speaker 1:I'm never writing them no as a future adaptation, although this is one is different because I knew for sure that it would be, so I can't pretend with this one that I wasn't aware of the fact that that that would happen. So that was probably more in my head than with other with other books and with my next, with my next one, which I haven't started, but I won't be thinking of a future adaptation.

51:13Speaker 2:I'm not, I don't. But this is still Australia, not Montezy exactly. Yeah, And I never want to think of the book as just to stop on the way to the adaptation. For me, it's the book is what matters, because that's between me and the reader. I love that because it's really personal, that it feels like something sort of magical, that it's my imagination and their imagination. Then it's creating something completely different with every single person there are, because they're all seeing little things from their own lives.

51:47Speaker 1:So that's I always find it funny when readers come up to me and they might say, and the such and such, and they'll get it a little bit wrong.

51:56Speaker 2:Yeah, because there was something that they thought of from their own life that they're woven.

52:01Speaker 1:Yes, into their Oh that's amazing, yea. But whereas the adaptation, then there's a whole lot of different people, and every single actor is bringing something from their own lives, and there's the writer and the director. So that to me is something completely completely different.

52:23Speaker 2:And even though you weren't anticipating it, and you kind of can't write with the end game being I want this, it's like people that are going to show bies because they want the red carpet rather than doing the work first. But I imagine when Nicole Kidman says, I have read your book. Oh, yes, it's a huge it's a huge thrill. Was she going to be in the book when she read it? Did she place herself in the book straight away? Or yes she knew she was celested? Yes, and what did you say?

53:00Speaker 1:But I still think it would really happen because I had had books adapted before, because it had been going on for years, so much so that I can remember I was single and somebody was talking about adapting Three Wishes, and I remember because he was coming to meet me, and I was thinking, this might be a good meet cute, maybe this is my.

53:25Speaker 2:And I can remember.

53:27Speaker 1:Because he came to the door and it was like the light caught his wedding ring to and so and nothing came of that, And so the years go by and nothing. It's just all authors talk about that, and you don't get too excited until the day they start filming. So even meeting Nicole, I was just thinking, this is a fun story to tell about meeting her, and it's a thrill that she's even read it. But then I was saying to her, well, I know not to get too excited because this may or may not happen, and she said, oh, no, we won't if we option to get excited, so they're not mucking around. Yeah, And she was right. She was right because it did happen much quicker than any of my other books have been adapted.

54:21Speaker 1:So I just got really lucky.

54:24Speaker 2:I haven't finished the book yet, are you going to break my heart. Well, this is a thing.

54:33Speaker 1:I have to break your heart a little. Yeah, that you're going to break my heart, but I just talked about your in safe hands. But I trust you to break my heart. Okay, good, good, I'll break it nicely, tenderly. I like the tension.

54:52Speaker 2:With Jane and the baby and the baby. Yeah, yes, yes, very relatable.

55:00Speaker 1:I've really I've realized that I don't think I've ever written a book where the desire to have children or not have children is not explored in some way.

55:15Speaker 2:And so yes, in this one. Why she does onto that so much? Do you think?

55:20Speaker 1:Well, probably because it took me a long time to meet the right person, and then we had trouble having children. So I either thought for quite a while that I was going to miss out so and I'd always, as a little girl, assumed I would have well, you know, because of being one of six children, and cousins with eight children of that, you know, the aunties and uncles with eight children, so Irish Irish Catholics. So I just assumed i'd have at least three. And yeah, I just couldn't.

56:03Speaker 1:And I know, I know some readers have got mad with me with them that if so, I would say, if somebody wants a baby in one of my books, I'm probably going to give them a baby. And I know people, I know people can go through, go through the desire to have children and then come at the other end and they accept it and they're okay. But I feel when I'm in charge of their world, I have to give them the baby. But maybe I should write that one day, because I think it does happen.

56:39Speaker 1:I've read about it that it's you grieve but then yeah, and I have that Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you should.

56:48Speaker 2:I should.

56:48Speaker 1:That's what I think this reader wanted me to to give hope for.

56:53Speaker 2:Yeah. It's interesting when you talk about what you're about, what your motivation is when you're writing, because you can only be the writer that you are, Yes, can't. You can't serve other people's wishes and broken dreams or their ideology. I know that's but do you feel a responsibility sometimes to do that?

57:21Speaker 4:Do you?

57:21Speaker 1:Because I felt this particular person, I felt, I felt bad about that. But I know if I ever start, if I'd have to have it at the end when she was past it all, I just know that I couldn't then resist her, and it turned down.

57:38Speaker 4:She was.

57:41Speaker 2:Left on the door. There was Oh my goodness.

57:45Speaker 1:Yes, but you're right. You can only be the writer that you are. Somebody an author once said to me that something about how every author has a desire to write the book they can't write, or something like that. Trying to think why that can. But she was talking about how she always writes really big books and she has this desire to write a really short book. Yes, I can't remember now what I was talking about, the sort of book that I want to write.

58:16Speaker 2:That it's that, it's what you are compelled to write. Yes, yes, because it's your truth.

58:23Speaker 1:Yes, yes, But then you read other books and think, why don't I write a book like like that? But then then I can't do it.

58:30Speaker 2:When you had finished this manuscript. Is there a feeling that you have? You know, sometimes people songwriters say, oh I knew i'd written. I knew that it was a hit. I knew it was a hit. Is there an internal barometer of truth that you have inside you where you like, I have served my character as well, and I have done I have I have told their truths?

59:00Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, deep in my heart I believe I have. But then it's all mixed up with the terror of people of critical things that people may or may not say. I haven't yet. I feel like I will surely one day grow up enough that I can let that go. Because I remember while I was writing this sometimes I'd think there's a line critics sometimes use Moriarty seems to think blah blah blah, And in my head, I was thinking, they're going to say, Moriarty seems to think that teenagers blah blah blah, And I what am I doing role right now that teenagers do or don't do? And then I'd say, to my children, your fault if you're doing something ages do, and of course you can't. And that was the thing with teenagers. There's so such a huge spectrum of what you could do with teenagers. You could lean into the the really hard things of being a teen or the wonderful which you've done. Yeah, that's what I was trying to do, to show that it's not just one way. So and I love I love my teenagers in this book so much.

1:00:26Speaker 2:I love them.

1:00:26Speaker 1:You can tell you love them so yeah, so deep in my heart, I feel, really, I feel really good about that.

1:00:33Speaker 2:Do you know what's interesting though, when you were saying before imagining what the critics will say. It's so much a part of the artistic process, and people do it in life no matter what your what walk of life you're in. We love to prosecute the case against ourselves. Yes, to get Why do we do that? Yeah, to get in first, to get in first? Why do we do that? And how have you not out grown that.

1:01:02Speaker 1:As an artist when you I think it's just being protective. And I don't know why I haven't because what.

1:01:12Speaker 2:I mean is I don't mean why, but because there's been external affirmation of your work on such a scale, and also internal affirmation because you kept doing it, so you know that you're good and that what you're doing is right. Why do you think we have this capacity as humans to want to prosecute ourselves.

1:01:42Speaker 1:I don't know, and I don't know. I don't know if everybody has it. But yeah, I remember that that friend who I talked about earlier, holding my and I had a bad boyfriend once and she said to me, you don't need him, because you don't need somebody to be hard on you. You're already hard enough on yourself. You don't need a critical person like that. So I guess it's.

1:02:10Speaker 2:I guess what I'm asking is it. Is it part of the process to oh, is there a point to way? Is it actually sort of strangely beneficial? Like I remember once hearing Will Anderson say talk about a teacher that it had when he was at high school. He said, you'll never you're not funny or whatever, and he's like, see, look at me now. And I thought to myself, but maybe that teacher hadn't said you said that to you?

1:02:41Speaker 1:Yes, then yes, I don't think not because I don't think this is helping that I'm trying to That's I think it's fine for envy to be a motivation, but I think that is the covering myself helping well. In some ways, the criticism can help you for everybody saying something similar. So with my book Truly Madly Guilty, everybody said I took too long to tell them what happened at the barbecue, and I think that's really vague. Everybody's saying, yes, if there's something coming, and then I've said to some people you know, friends, and yeah, yeah, so and you get to a point where that doesn't actually hurt your feelings at all that's fine, but was the saying Moriarty seems to think. I don't think that was helping me along the way, because I was already doing the best sad Yet you took it upon yourself. You didn't even have to wait for the critic to do it. We do it to ourselves. But maybe also sometimes I feel like I'm a bit superstitious, thinking if I think these really mean things, and surely that won't happen. It's like when you think all the worst things that could happen, a car accident or whatever, then every terrible thing that

1:04:08Speaker 1:could happen that you yes.

1:04:12Speaker 2:Having read that book, I can tell you that doesn't work. It's going to come and get you. Any who do you? I know writers are always like it's like asking me to pick my favorite child. But they must know you most wanted to meet again, to bring to life again.

1:04:36Speaker 1:Oh probably Madeline. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, so I loved I loved writing her the first time round. And yeah, yeah, probably Madeline.

1:04:50Speaker 2:There's there's nothing like her O calamity, yes, yes, yeah, and all that, and the fact that because I can always remember when I first created her, writing perpetually outraged like so and so, and she MARIALI sparkle egirl like so and so, and then combining those two attributes, and then she became Madeline and I could I knew who she was so clearly. And it's fun to write somebody who's perpetually out, who shows themselves. So, yes, the three sixty of them, Yes, exactly to be saying, yeah, yeah, what's your next book that you referred to before?

1:05:30Speaker 4:Oh?

1:05:31Speaker 1:No, I referred I have I've got nothing.

1:05:33Speaker 2:Oh you got nothing?

1:05:36Speaker 1:What I did write a short story, my first ever short story, which was a little bit different from anything I've written before. It was sort of I was calling it science fiction, but I think maybe the right word is speculative fiction, because I just finished a book and he called it speculation.

1:05:56Speaker 2:What is speculative fiction? Yeah? What is it?

1:05:59Speaker 1:Were you're speculating possibility of the future? Or yeah, how is it different from science fiction? I mean, it's good to know.

1:06:08Speaker 2:I think I just liked it written speculat in fiction, you're going to have to explain it to get better at that. It was set in the future.

1:06:18Speaker 1:And sort of using in a couple of generations away with the possibilities of technology and again, that's something that if and I enjoyed writing it a lot. But the part that of course I'm not good at is the actual technology, right, But I'm just really interested in it that he wouldn't help with that.

1:06:38Speaker 2:Yeah, the kids maybe, Yeah, but it's like the Simpsons imagine the world that you would have no knowledge of. Yes, but it proves to be prophetic. Yes, Yeah, it was fun to do that. Yeah. So maybe do you think because there's talent in your family, do you think it's born or mate? Obviously it's it's refined and it's enriched and developed. I just think it's a bit of both. I don't. Yeah. I think.

1:07:13Speaker 1:That mum and Dad were both storytellers, and my mom's still an amazing storyteller. So we've got a group the family chat with all of us on it am some of her messages. So somebody will say I saw so and so well that reminds me of such and SUCHU. She used to live down the road from Missus Brodie, who was and she tells the story so beautifully, so I think, And of course Dad always took completely the credit for it. So I think I heard one of your sisters say he would tell the story and not let the facts get ye. Never let the story, never let the facts get good story. Yeah, so I think we just had that, and then Jackie was the brave enough one to finish it and have a go and realize that. And I know she always she's always so kind.

1:08:14Speaker 1:She always says that I'm sure you would have finished it, but I needed to see her do it first. So you just need to see it.

1:08:23Speaker 2:Do you think that it's been hard for your sisters in the similar pursuit that you have achieved this success? Now, obviously you're very close and they're very happy for you. I know you read each other's work, but the very same envy that motivated you.

1:08:45Speaker 1:Well, I say, I think they're nicer than me. Well, you're the eldest, I'm the eldest, and there is that. So I was the one who, you know, got my driver's license first and all that sort of thing. So I think that that helped my and my sister Jackie, she's one lots of awards, so she's an award winning author. But yeah, there are funny there are funny times, but it's happened the other way. Nicola and I were at an events once and a woman came up to us and said, oh, I love your books. But then she said to Nichola, but you're you're my favorite. You have to have a favorite.

1:09:20Speaker 2:Yes, so there's things like but it's a tricky thing to navigate, tricky in the context of course.

1:09:30Speaker 1:Yeah, so I can't I guess I can't speak for them except to say that they're both fantastic writers.

1:09:38Speaker 2:And there and the Moriarity. Yes, and they're lovely. You're very lovely, very lovely. I'm I cannot thank you enough for bringing this world to us again, Oh, thank you, and doing it with such heart and wheat and soul and richness. It's just so fucking good. It's really really good. You've done a great job. Thank you. It's a great read.

1:10:13Speaker 1:Thank you, Thank you so much. I will hold that in my heart.

1:10:17Speaker 2:Ass But it really is because it is, like we said earlier, it's an act of faith. I'm glad you don't have, you know, someone growling out rosy O'Donnell as a nun.

1:10:31Speaker 5:But obviously you were fine with that. You were fine with that. I just was like, oh, that's a lot, thank you. What do you think is going to happen in the casting of this this time? And the kids, do you have ideas like that?

1:10:47Speaker 4:Uh?

1:10:49Speaker 2:I did.

1:10:49Speaker 1:For my daughter, I put because she's a fan of Timothy Shallamy, who isn't Yes, And so I put one character. I said, he resembled.

1:11:03Speaker 2:Just in case. Are your kids artie? Oh?

1:11:11Speaker 1:Well, it's hard to get them reading at the moment.

1:11:13Speaker 2:It's very hard.

1:11:14Speaker 1:The phone, Yes, the phones, that's tricky. So I'm sure they have the potential. But at the moment, no, not yet, No tech free Tuesday exactly exactly.

1:11:29Speaker 2:I don't know what. I don't know what they're what And who's seen it so far? Who's read it? Yeah?

1:11:38Speaker 1:So so the producers have all so somebody is that they're working on the screenplay read now.

1:11:49Speaker 2:Yeah. Wow, that they would have been happy with that, they said they were. But we'll see what they Yeah.

1:11:57Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to accept the fact that of course they'll change.

1:12:02Speaker 2:They'll change that. You're very good at that, aren't you.

1:12:05Speaker 1:I didn't like it when they changed when I wrote the I wrote something for season two of Big Little Lives, which was not to be published, and I realized I did not like and because it was not to be published, I didn't like that they changed some of those things because it felt like those storylines therefore never existed. So but I don't. When there's the book, then there's the book. So I felt at the end of writing that I called it a novella. I thought, where's my book? And yeah, I don't care if they if they changed things, because nobody can change my book because it's there.

1:12:46Speaker 2:Yes, and yet you also get to see conversely, in surrendering that that control, you get to be really pleasantly surprised as well, like Laura.

1:12:59Speaker 1:Dern oh yes, oh yeah, and there are things that yes. So I put that in the author's note that Laura took that character of Renata, who was not really important in the first book, and she made it her own. So so so I was taking from Benarta. And of course I saw Meryl Streep completely when I was writing Mary Louise, because I'd seen her verse.

1:13:23Speaker 2:So did Meryl Streep know that you conjured her up, that you had.

1:13:28Speaker 1:She had heard the story. I think she made some little remark like thanks for the gig or something, some funny line referring to.

1:13:39Speaker 2:That that's an amazing thing to have done, by the way.

1:13:43Speaker 1:It is, isn't it that yeah, I still can't believe that when I I always tell the story of not being able to believe. I had the audacity to say I've written this role for Eryl, and then getting that text that said, we've got Meryl you're a bit witchy. Well, we'll see if we can get Timothy Shallimy for my daughter.

1:14:07Speaker 2:I like getting past car that's right, Yeah, I know. Anyway, he's not I said that, but he's not at all right. Actually, who could you play? Well?

1:14:21Speaker 1:I said that he looked a bit like the character of Seth. So the he's not right when you think.

1:14:31Speaker 2:Okay, sorry darling, he wasn't right. Well, there'll be some there'll be a lot of people gagging, I think for a role in this I hope. I can't wait to see it. Yes, I can't wait to see it. Actually, and I look forward to seeing you again. We will see you on tour with this book. Oh yes, what do you hope for from in general? If you like good health?

1:14:58Speaker 1:And we talked about that to be mallaed free. Well, because I'm turning sixty in in November, so I've got a real thing about okay, so this is it this next decade. So I was out to dinner with some friends the other night, and I was saying, this, so we've really got to I'm just not sure what it means, but this is it. One of my friend's husbands, I have seen you so animated, but there's nothing. I still I don't have anything to it, because my husband will saying there's no substance to what you say, because I don't have anything. I just feelings.

1:15:42Speaker 2:Yes, I don't know what when you say this is it?

1:15:46Speaker 1:Well, when nearly I don't mean I'm nearly done, that life's nearly over, but that whole thing of as you're living your life, you're waiting for when I get to this, when I get to you've got to stop that, because this is to stop waiting. And I think, but what you do differently exactly what doesn't make you do? I'm not sure. I think maybe just when I'm out with girlfriends, we just enjoy it, enjoy it more.

1:16:15Speaker 2:Yeah.

1:16:15Speaker 1:Yeah, that's enough. That's enough, isn't it. Yeah?

1:16:18Speaker 2:Yeah, Well that was Leanne Moriarty. I came away from that conversation thinking about what she said near the end. That idea of this is it of refusing to keep waiting for the next milestone before you actually let yourself enjoy your life. Coming from a woman who's climbed to the very top of her field more than once and still catches herself bracing for criticism before a single review is even written, I think there's something for all of us in that Big Little Truths is out October twenty fifth, and if this conversation made you want to go back and revisit the world of Madeline, Celeste and the rest, Big Little Eyes is exactly where to start. If you enjoy this episode, make sure you follow No Filter wherever you're listening, and Momma Mia subscribers get to hear it first.

1:17:09Speaker 2:Every episode of No Filter drops two full days before regular listening, exclusive for subscribers. Plus, you get access to subscriber exclusive episodes across the Mum and mea network. Tap the link in the show notes and become a Mum and MEA subscriber today. I'm your host, Katelinebrook. Thank you so much for listening to No Filter