Author Liane Moriarty on her long-awaited sequel to 'Big Little Lies'

0:00Hey, it's Emperors Book of the Day, I'm Andrew Limbong. What does a writer owe to their readers? Obviously, a good story share, but particularly when you're working within a certain genre, readers come to want things. They come to expect certain things. This is particularly true when you're writing a sequel, and readers already have builds in relationships with your characters. Leon Moriarty is on the pod today, talking about her novel Big Little Truths. As a sequel to her novel Big Little Lies, which is adapted into a pretty popular TV show on HBO with big name actors like Reese Witherspoon and Lord Dern and Mariel Stree. After the break, Moriarty talks to here in his Emico Tamagawa about the relationship between the TV show and the books, and how the show changed the course for some of her characters in the book. Hey, Lulu here. Whether we are romping through science, music, politics, technology, or feelings, we seek to leave you seeing the world anew. Radio Lab adventures right on the edge of what we think we know, wherever you get podcast.

1:03How did we get here? That's a question we have been trying to answer a lot here at NPR. We are exploring global histories on through line. We are hearing from national security experts on sources and methods. We're watching the markets with planet money. You can support this work across all our podcasts with NPR+. Get more at plus dot NPR dot org. Leon Moriarty published Big Data Lies back in 2014. So why write a sequel now? This was the one book where people kept asking. And every now and then there'd be this big moment where everybody would be saying, oh, we really do want a new season of big little lies. And then I actually started writing a book set in a high school. And then the came up again, everybody saying we wanted new season. And then I suddenly thought, you know what, I could put that storyline into the big little lies world. And all of a sudden I said, I'm doing it. Then they said, we want it now, which I was used to because you know, all of this sort

2:07of leisurely in the film world, they're saying now, now, now. Well, it's also, I mean, because the book is like all of your books really filled with detail and length and you know, lots of ramifications. So just like my gosh, trying to write that in a hurry kind of amazes me. But thank you. I did want to ask you because you have this lovely little letter to the reader at the beginning. And one of the things you talk about is the fact that this book is not influenced by the series except for a couple of amazing actors. And I just want to play a little clip from each of them. One of them of course is Lord Darn who plays, is it Renata? Yes. And we have a little scene of her talking to Madeline Reese Witherswin's character on the first day of school in the first season of Big Little Life. How was your summer? It was wonderful, very busy with the kids and camp just flew by. Same. How was yours, yeah? Well, joined the board of PayPal. What was I thinking? I didn't want to work through to my life. But you know, oh, hold on.

3:09Yeah. And that phone calls about Hamilton tickets. And basically when we first meet her, she has the life that everybody wants. The other one is of course in season two, the addition of the amazing Merrill Street who plays Nicole Kidman's mother-in-law, Mary Louise. And there's another scene, again with Madeline, that is just killer. I just want to hear that. You're very short. Excuse me? I don't mean it in a negative way. No. Maybe I do. I find little people to be untrustworthy. As a vertically challenged person, I took Umber a jet bat. You know, both of them are such wonderful actors. And yes, both Renata and Mary Louise appear far more prominently in this book, Big Little Truths. Like, was it that you couldn't quite get them out of your head? Yes. So in the first book, Renata only has a very small one of her defining personality features

4:11is just that every time. Which was somebody I, one of the other school parents, they're always coming from a board meeting of some sort. So that was just, he was really just um, that annoying parent. Yes, probably very nice for you. But Lauren obviously took that role and made it her own. And I know the readers, if I'd written the next book without mentioning her, they would not have been happy. So that was very much when I was writing, uh, Renata in the second book. That was Laura's Renata that was in my mind. And then Mary Louise. So I created that role for Merrill Street, which that's why she's called Mary Louise because I thought I'll find out what Merrill's middle name is because I had this audacious idea that Merrill could play this role. And that's when I found out that Mary Louise was actually a given name.

5:13And that was so perfect for the, um, for the character. And then they, I couldn't believe it. I, the story that I always tell is that they were teasing me because I was saying, I look at you Liam, you've become so hollywood getting on the phone and saying, get me Merrill. And then a few months later, I got a text saying, we got you Merrill. You explore some really big issues in this book, I mean with, with Merrill Louise, it's aging and the things that can happen when you're not properly monitored. I mean, I was thinking, boy, that would be a lot of fun for Merrill Street to play. I know. So, uh, yeah, and I hope, I hope she thinks the same. And, and of course, I hope, um, because the season three will be based on the book, but they will make it their own story. So things will change. And, um, but I hope they, I hope they keep that particular storyline. This book obviously we're still drawn to Celeste and Madeline and Jane, just because, you

6:14know, they're the ones who drew us into big little lives. And I feel like the issues that they're facing in this book, real, I mean, they're sort of coming to terms with their own aging, even though they're not that old Madeline is turning 50 Celeste. I mean, Jane is of course younger and has a whole other clock issue, but, um, setting it forward really gives you a chance to explore some of these, you know, as you're in your 50s, what are the things you're facing? Yes. And I think I, I just keep doing that with my books, my characters are getting older, along with me. Uh, and so I'm just interested. I guess I can remember reading books when I was younger about older women and thinking, uh, isn't that interesting? They're still, they still have a rich in a life. They're still people. I still have relationships and, yes, exactly. And things still matter. They're not just, sort of, blooms. Um, and so I think I, I will keep doing that.

7:15I'm about to turn 60 this year. And now I find women in their 60s really interesting. Um, and it was funny for me looking back on that, um, that book because I had the, um, begins with Madeline Biglise on her 40th birthday and she's feeling so old. And when I was reading it, I was like, oh, Madeline, you know, dear little 40 year old what are you doing? And of course you have three wonderful actresses playing Celeste and Madeline and Jane Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley. I mean, because it's also a TV series, I have to ask, um, so are you going to follow all these people like 10 years down the line and maybe or me to be even 20, you know, as, as Celeste and Madeline start thinking about an old age home or something. Why not? I would definitely, yeah, I'm definitely not saying this time I will never write another

8:15sequel because it was tricky, but I had a lot of fun writing it. And so, yeah, why not? If they're all willing to come back, I'll do it. One big little lies came out. Of course it was a bestseller and then there was the HBO series and it like elevated your life into sort of a different stratosphere. I mean, can you still like say, oh my gosh, I did that now or how does it continue to impact you? In some ways I can feel a little detached from it. I visited the set, which was great fun and that was a fascinating experience for me. But then it was back to my day to day life and it just means that it's always this thing with authors that if you're a party and you meet somebody and they say, would I have read everything that you've written? Or they say, that's the awful thing they say, should I have heard of you? And I don't know how you ever meant to answer that. And mostly, no, they wouldn't have heard of me. But now, if I mention big little lies, even if they never saw the show, there'll be

9:18a little flicker of recognition. But apart from that, and of course more people read the book because of the show, it brought me more readers, which I'm hugely grateful for. And because it was a success, since then I've had other books adapted to. Oh, yes. Yeah, that's good fun. But I'm still a novelist. I'm not ever thinking that the novel is just a stepping stone along the way to the adaptation. I will take the adaptations for sure, but that's not my end goal. And I feel that it's really personal with the books because it's between me and the reader. And I love that because it feels a really personal connection. It's just my imagination and their imagination. And I do love the fact that I'm the boss of my novels. Billionaire Mark Cuban has stared into the belly of the beast of America's healthcare

10:26system. I mean, it's so bad. You can go through a long list of really quality hospitals and they don't know their costs. So, can Medicare for all be a solution? We take a hard look at the cost of the program along with US healthcare itself. Find this and hear more stories from the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app. This is Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. I interviewed feminist icon Gloria Steinem several times over the years and we've compiled a special episode to celebrate her life and legacy. Women become ourselves after 50. We drop a lot of baggage and really become much more of a true selves. Find it on the NPR app or wherever you listen to Fresh Air.