 | |
| Author | Liane Moriarty |
|---|---|
| Published | 2014 |
| Publisher | Penguin Publishing |
| ISBN | 978-0-399-16706-5 |
| Preceded by | The Husband's Secret |
| Followed by | Truly Madly Guilty |
Big Little Lies is a 2014 novel written by Liane Moriarty. It was published in July 2014 by Penguin Publishing. [1] The novel made the New York Times Best Seller list. [2] In 2015, it was a recipient of the Davitt Award.
Jane, a single mother, is on her way to Pirriwee Public School in Sydney's Northern Beaches, where her son Ziggy is starting kindergarten. On the way, she meets Madeline, another mother with a daughter of the same age. Madeline's friend Celeste is also sending her twin sons, Max and Josh, to school. The two strike up a friendship with Jane. All three of them have their own problems: Madeline is resentful that her daughter from her previous marriage is growing close to her ex-husband's new wife, Bonnie; Celeste is physically abused by her rich banker husband, Perry; and Jane was raped and left to raise her son Ziggy on her own. To make matters worse for her, Ziggy is accused of bullying Amabella, his future classmate, during orientation.
As months pass, the three become close and Jane shares her experience with the other women. Jane tells the two other women that Ziggy is the result of a rape by a man named Saxon Banks when Jane was 19. Celeste and Madeline realize that the father is Perry's cousin, but decide to keep it from Jane for the time being. Meanwhile, Celeste's marriage becomes even more violent and she starts meeting with a counselor and rents an apartment for herself and her sons without Perry's knowledge. Ziggy is once again accused of bullying Amabella, and again denies it. Jane finds out that Ziggy is keeping a secret about who is hurting Amabella and persuades him to write down the name of the child, which turns out to be Max, one of Celeste's twins, but she is not sure how to broach the subject with Celeste.
On the night of Pirriwee Public's Trivia Night, Josh tells Celeste that it is Max, not Ziggy, who is bullying the other children. She realizes that Max is emulating Perry and finally decides to leave him. Perry finds out about Celeste's apartment, and despite a heated argument, the couple still go to the Trivia Night.
Once they reach the school, Jane sees Perry and realizes that he is, in fact, the man who raped her and confronts him in front of Madeline and Celeste. Celeste recalls Perry's childhood stories where he used his cousin's name to avoid trouble for himself. Perry admits to raping Jane but shows no remorse. In the ensuing argument between them, Perry hits Celeste. Enraged by what she has witnessed, Bonnie pushes him, and he falls from the balcony to his death.
In the aftermath of the fall, Madeline finds out that Bonnie's father was abusive and seeing Perry's violence brought back memories of witnessing her father beat her mother. Everybody on the balcony decides to lie to protect Bonnie, but she turns herself in. She is convicted of accidental manslaughter and sentenced to 200 hours of community service. A year after Perry's death, Celeste works in a family law firm and sets up a trust fund for Ziggy. She speaks publicly about her abusive relationship, starting her speech with: "This can happen to anyone."
Moriarty's main inspiration for the story came from a radio interview she heard in which a woman recounted her parents' abusive relationship. [3] The woman narrated how, even as an adult, she hid under her bed to escape her parents' fighting, an experience Moriarty ended up using as a scene in the book. [3] Initially, the book was a first-person narrative from each of the three main characters, but Moriarty soon decided against it, instead interjecting minor characters' statements between portions of the story. [4]
Big Little Lies has generally been well received by critics, who praised the book's balance of humour with more serious issues like domestic abuse. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "A seemingly fluffy book suddenly touches base with vicious reality, in ways that may give Big Little Lies even more staying power than The Husband's Secret [Moriarty's previous book]." [5] Roberta Bernstein of USA Today gave it three stars out of four, deeming it "a fun, engaging and sometimes disturbing read, even if the characters are more conceits than flesh and blood." [6] Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly gave it an A and noted that, while the book fell in the "chick-lit" category, Moriarty still offered "insights [that] aren't any less wise or funny or true just because she sometimes likes a champagne metaphor or hangs her story on a shoe." [7] Carol Memmott of The Washington Post wrote, "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." [8]
A television mini-series adaptation of the novel was produced by HBO titled Big Little Lies , filmed on location in Monterey, California. It was originally released February 19, 2017 on HBO. The mini-series stars Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgård, Adam Scott, Laura Dern, and Zoë Kravitz, and won 8 Emmy Awards at the 2017 Primetime Emmy Awards including Outstanding Limited Series. [9] [10]
Despite being called a miniseries, HBO announced in December 2017 that the series would return for a second season, [11] based on a novella by Moriarty. [12]
Nicole Mary Kidman is an American and Australian actress and producer. Known for her work across various film and television productions from several genres, she has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and six Golden Globe Awards.
Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006 and 2015, and Forbes listed her among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2019 and 2021. In 2021, Forbes named her the world's highest earning actress, and in 2023, she was named one of the richest women in America with an estimated net worth of $440 million.
Freeway is a 1996 American black comedy crime film written and directed by Matthew Bright and produced by Oliver Stone. It stars Kiefer Sutherland, Reese Witherspoon and Brooke Shields. The film's plot is a dark take on the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood".
Shailene Diann Woodley is an American actress. Born in San Bernardino, California, she was raised in Simi Valley, and started modeling at the age of five and began acting professionally in minor television roles. She first gained prominence for her starring role as Amy Juergens in the ABC Family teen drama series The Secret Life of the American Teenager (2008–2013). She subsequently starred in the films The Descendants (2011) and The Spectacular Now (2013), receiving a nomination for her first Golden Globe Award for the former.
Robin Weigert is an American television and film actress. She is best known for portraying Calamity Jane on the television series Deadwood (2004–2006), for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2004, Ally Lowen in Sons of Anarchy (2010–2013), Dr. Amanda Reisman in Big Little Lies (2017-2019), and Abby in Concussion (2013).
Kathryn Love Newton is an American actress. She is known for her starring roles as Louise Brooks in the CBS comedy series Gary Unmarried (2008–2010), Abigail Carlson in the HBO mystery drama series Big Little Lies (2017–2019), and Allie Pressman in the Netflix teen drama series The Society (2019). She is also known for portraying the older versions of Claire Novak in The CW dark fantasy series Supernatural (2014–2018) and Joanie Clark in the AMC period drama series Halt and Catch Fire (2016–2017).
Liane Moriarty is an Australian author. She has written nine novels, including the New York Times best sellers Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers, which were adapted into television series for HBO and Hulu, respectively.
Nathan Ross is an American film and television producer.
Bruna Papandrea is an Australian film and television producer and the founder of production company Made Up Stories. Prior to Made Up Stories, Papandrea co-founded the production company Pacific Standard with Reese Witherspoon.
Big Little Lies is an American drama television series based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Liane Moriarty. Created and written by David E. Kelley, it aired on HBO from February 19, 2017, to July 21, 2019, encompassing 14 episodes and two seasons. Originally billed as a miniseries, Jean-Marc Vallée directed the first season, while Andrea Arnold directed the second season.
Truly Madly Guilty is a 2016 novel by Australian author Liane Moriarty. It tells the story of Sam and Clementine, an ordinary yet busy married couple trying to balance work and family life. After the couple is invited by Clementine's old friend Erika to a neighbor's barbecue party, a spiral of intrigue, lust, and betrayal is unleashed. The book was published in July 2016 by Flatiron Books.
Hello Sunshine is an American media company founded by actress Reese Witherspoon and Strand Equity Founder and Managing Partner Seth Rodsky in 2016. Pacific Standard, the production company Witherspoon co-founded with Bruna Papandrea in 2012, is now a subsidiary of Hello Sunshine.
Jane Harper is a British–Australian author known for her crime novels The Dry, Force of Nature and The Lost Man, all set in rural Australia.
Little Fires Everywhere is the second novel by the American author Celeste Ng. It was published in 2017 by Penguin Press. The novel takes place in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where Ng grew up. The novel focuses on two families living in 1990s Shaker Heights who are brought together through their children. Ng described writing about her hometown as "a little bit like writing about a relative. You see all of the great things about them, you love them dearly, and yet, you also know all of their quirks and their foibles."
The Undoing is an American mystery psychological thriller television miniseries based on the 2014 novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It was written and produced by David E. Kelley and directed by Susanne Bier. The miniseries stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant and premiered on HBO on October 25, 2020.
Darby Eliza Camp is an American actress. Her career had begun through her mother, an actress herself. Camp's breakout role came in HBO's Big Little Lies (2017–2019) in the recurring role of Chloe Adaline Mackenzie, the daughter of Madeline Martha Mackenzie. She garnered further recognition for her appearances in films as Frankie Hughes in Benji (2018), Kate Pierce in The Christmas Chronicles (2018), and Phoebe Evans in Dreamland (2019). She reprised her role of Kate Pierce in The Christmas Chronicles 2. In addition, she starred in Paramount Pictures's Clifford the Big Red Dog and Starz's Gaslit.
Reese Witherspoon is an American actress. She made her acting debut in The Man in the Moon (1991). Her second box office performance was with Kiefer Sutherland in Freeway (1996) in which Witherspoon played a youth troubled by victimization and neglect who has a violent murderous streak, but in the name of protecting vulnerable youth from sexual predation by seemingly perverted men. She then rose to prominence in 1999 with Cruel Intentions and for her portrayal of Tracy Flick in the black comedy Election, which earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical nomination. She achieved fame for her work on romantic comedies with her role as Elle Woods in the comedy Legally Blonde (2001) and its 2003 sequel, as well as her starring role in Sweet Home Alabama (2002). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in the 2005 biographical musical film Walk the Line. She also received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the 2014 drama Wild.
Made Up Stories is a film and television development and production company founded in 2017 by producer Bruna Papandrea that "[champions] women on and off the screen." The company has offices in Los Angeles and Sydney.
Nine Perfect Strangers is a 2018 novel by Australian author Liane Moriarty. It was published on September 18, 2018 by Macmillan Australia. It is a New York Times Bestseller.
What Alice Forgot is a 2009 novel by Australian author Liane Moriarty. It tells the story of a 39-year-old mother of three who loses her memory of the last ten years of her life. The book is Moriarty's third novel.