Liane Moriarty explores how one moment can change a life in new book, Here One Moment

NEW YORK – Liane Moriarty has reached a level of success few authors can claim. She has written eight bestsellers, including Big Little Lies, Apples Never Fall and The Husband’s Secret.

Several of her novels have been adapted for television, in limited series that star actors including Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Annette Bening and Meryl Streep.

All told, Moriarty has sold more than 20 million books.

Despite all that success, she shows little interest in becoming a “brand” and does not particularly enjoy talking about herself.

But the 57-year-old has a new book: Here One Moment, which was published on Sept 10. And so, ahead of her book’s release, Moriarty spoke to The New York Times in a video interview from her home in Sydney about her work habits, the challenges of doing publicity, and how one moment can change the course of a life.

Her latest novel explores that conceit. It is about a woman on a flight from Hobart, in Australia, to Sydney, who stands up mid-flight and starts telling passengers how and when they will die. She walks down the aisle of the plane, points at them, one by one, and names their ends – pancreatic cancer, age 66, or intimate partner homicide, age 25.

“Fate won’t be fought,” she says. Then the plane lands, and its passengers have to figure out how to go about their lives with these predictions in mind.

A couple of years ago, you tried to take a year off writing, and you were calling it your ‘year of joy’. But then you failed to do that and wrote a book instead. Why did you want to step back for a year?

I always feel a little bit odd at the end of the promotional period. Because it’s too much time talking about yourself – like I’m doing right now.

I’m at the beginning of it now, so I’m still a little bit awkward and not quite into the zone. But there’s a period I will get to in four or five weeks, where I’ll be in that zone. Then I’ll start to feel like, oh, you’re getting a bit pleased with yourself – and then the self-loathing will start.

By the end of the tour, I just need to stop completely. That’s how I felt. But it wasn’t so much, stop writing. It was, I don’t want to start talking about myself again.

This is a vast oversimplification, but that’s not very American of you.

It’s an Australian trait. And I guess a trait for women, as well. But, as I say, there’s a part in the middle where I start to kind of like it.

Does that feel okay? Or does it feel icky?

It feels icky. That’s the part when I come home from doing an event, and while doing the event, I enjoyed it. But then in the middle of the night in the hotel room, I’ll wake up thinking, “Ugh.” I can’t stand imagining my little laughs and the little joke I’ve told.

What is it called, ‘tall poppy syndrome’?

That’s definitely part of it – don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t be too pleased with yourself or they’ll come and get you. So I’m going to get myself first. To be self-deprecating is a trait that we enjoy.

Was it weird the first time one of your books was adapted?

Yes. It’s a really interesting experience because you have to let go a little bit. I’m happy that I didn’t get very involved because when I see adaptations myself, I think the best adaptations are not completely faithful to the material. It’s a different medium and there should be changes.

Having said that, of course, when it’s my work, I don’t especially want changes. It’s funny because I say, “Oh, yes, I understand there should be changes.” But then I think, “Don’t change that.”

A lot of writers who are as successful as you become brands in various ways. I get the sense you are not interested in that.

I am interested in the books and readers. I love meeting the readers. If nobody ever read your books, would you still write? I wouldn’t.

I used to take myself too seriously, not liking being called a holiday read. But now I’ve realised, holiday reads are the best reads. That’s the time you really can immerse yourself in a book. So that’s really important to me.

But being an actual personality – I don’t have the right personality to be a personality.

I have a marketing background. So I can see, sometimes, what a publicist wants from me, and I understand why. But at the same time, I feel a great resistance to doing it because I don’t want to be the product. There’s just this agony of self-consciousness that can come over me.

It is an odd match. Authors have to promote their books, but those skills are so different from the skills that make a great writer. It’s the opposite. You want to sit in a room by yourself for long stretches of time – or stand in front of a group of people and explain your inner thoughts.

It’s funny that they expect you to be the sort of person who can see nobody – and now you need to be a stand-up comedian. And don’t be weird and shy, but of course you are. That’s exactly the sort of person who writes books.

Did you want me to tell you the story of how I came up with this book?

Please, go ahead.

I was on a flight out of Hobart, Tasmania, which is a little island state down the bottom of Australia. The flight was delayed, and I was sitting there and I didn’t have a book. I was looking around and this thought came, which was that every person on this plane is one day going to die.

And looking back, I think there’s a reason my thoughts were turning to this issue of mortality. First, my sister got diagnosed with breast cancer, and then I lost my father, just at the beginning of the pandemic. So we had the pandemic when all of us started to look death in the face. Then I got diagnosed with breast cancer.

My sister and I are fine now, but your 50s is a time when people around you start to get diagnosed with things. At every event I’m at with my friends, we all seemed to begin with going through all our health issues – which we can’t believe. You spend the rest of your life unable to believe you’re getting old.

So I was thinking about mortality, and then the thought came into my head that one day, the data on how every person on this plane – their ages and cause of death – will be known. And that sort of blew my mind. And that’s when I thought, imagine if that information were available right now.

It is interesting to think about how that sort of thing happens, right? If you hadn’t been on that plane, or if you had a book, maybe you just wouldn’t have had that moment.

I know, maybe I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have thought of it. NYTIMES