I don’t think I had heard of Liane Moriarty, although she has written several books in addition to the one I have just read. But ‘Big little lies’ was this month’s allocated read for our book club, so I acquired a copy second-hand, and have just finished it.
The novel is set in Australia, and centres around families whose children attend a village state primary school. It particularly focuses on the new Kindergarten class, who are due to start school in January. Australia, being in the Southern hemisphere, has its long summer break over Christmas, and the school year begins in January.
However it begins with a chapter written from the perspective of an elderly lady whose home overlooks the school yard. She hears voices from a school fundraising evening, and becomes quite disturbed at the volume, particularly when someone starts screaming… it’s quickly clear that someone has died, although neither the identity of the victim nor the circumstances become clear until almost the end of the book.
The action then moves back six months earlier, when several parents and young children are converging on the school for the Kindergarten induction day, to introduce the children to the school and their teacher. There are several storylines and characters introduced immediately, In particularl, we meet Madeline, who likes confrontation, Jane who is young, single and shy, and Celeste, who is beautiful, wealthy, and rather vague.
Madeline’s daughter Chloe is confident, Jane’s son Ziggy is rather why, and Celeste’s twin sons Josh and Max are somewhat hyperactive. Jane helps Madeline after an accident, and the three women become friendly while drinking coffee and waiting for the induction morning to be over. Unfortunately there’s a nasty incident in the playground, and Jane’s son Ziggy is accused of hurting another child, although he denies it and she is convinced he couldn’t possibly be responsible.
There’s quite a large cast of characters, many of whom don’t play a large role, and since Madeline’s husband Ed confuses two of the husbands it’s not surprising that I did too. The important ones gradually emerge, and it seems at first that, although there are certainly secrets, they’re clear to the reader from early on. One of the women is experiencing domestic abuse, one is quite damaged emotionally by the encounter that led to her becoming pregnant, and another is worried that she is losing her teenage daughter to her ex-husband and his new wife.
So there are some very serious issues involved in the book, yet somehow the author manages to keep it light-hearted, fast-moving, and increasingly tense. Many of the chapters have snippets of information from different parents, given to a journalist who wants to report on the incident at the parents’ evening, and I found that a tad confusing at first. But they add a bit of depth, at times, to the events of the chapters and also a bit of light relief.
The chapters are short, the switches between characters and subplots so well done that I felt almost part of the village community for a while. And the air of tension, not so much as to stress me, but enough to keep me reading any spare moment I could, mainly involved me wondering which of the parents was going to be bumped off. Little ‘clues’ dropped by the snippets of conversation had me wondering… none of the main characters were reported as saying anything, so I knew it could be any of them. I was concerned it might be one of the people I had come to care about…
It’s hard to say much about the book without giving spoilers, but I found it gripping, emotive, and thought-provoking. The last few chapters opened up to new revelations which I might have seen coming, but didn’t. Yet everything was entirely believable in context.
This has to be one of the best books I’ve read all year, and I have already added a few of the author’s other novels to my wishlist. Very highly recommended.
Apparently a TV series has been made of this book, but I don't think I'd like that as much.
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