THE NEW YORK TIMES: Liane Moriarty Has Sold 20 Million Books. She Would Rather Not Talk About It

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, the author shows little interest in becoming a “brand”. In fact, she doesn’t particularly enjoy talking about herself.

But Moriarty, 57, has a new book: Here One Moment, which was published Tuesday (in the US, and late last month in Australia). 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 new novel explores that conceit. It is about a woman on a flight from Hobart to Sydney, who stands up mid-flight and starts telling passengers how and when they will die. She walks down the aisle of the airplane, points at them, one by one, and names their end — 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.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q: I read that a couple 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?

A: 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.

Q: Fair enough.

A: 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”!

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

A: I know, it’s definitely 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.

Q: Does that feel OK? Or does it feel icky?

A: 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.

Q: What is it called, “tall poppy syndrome?”

A: 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.

Q: Was it weird the first time one of your books was adapted? Was it weird seeing a character you created in your head out in the world, eating salad?

A: 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!”

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

A: I’m interested in the books and I’m interested in the readers, which is why I would never say, “I don’t want to do tutoring anymore”. I do love meeting the readers. If nobody ever read your books, would you still write? I wouldn’t. That’s part of it, that I write the book and there’s a reader who reads it.

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 exactly 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.

Q: It is an odd match, right? Authors have to promote their books, but those skills are so different from the skills that make a great writer. It’s the opposite, really. 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.

A: 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?

Q: Please, go ahead.

A: 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 cheerful thought came into my head, which was that every single 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 of all, my sister got diagnosed with breast cancer, and then I lost my father, just at the beginning of the pandemic. So then 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, we’re both 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 single person on this plane — their ages and cause of death — will be known. And for some reason, that sort of blew my mind. That those facts will one day be available. And that’s when I thought, imagine if that information was available right now.

Q: It’s 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.

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

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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