#1 New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty returns to the podcast to discuss HERE ONE MOMENT, a riveting, terrifically crafted novel about free will, destiny, love, and death that begins with a mysterious woman walking down a plane aisle mid-flight pronouncing how and when her fellow passengers will die. Liane delves into the philosophical and emotional depth of her novel. Then, she shares how personal experiences, including her battle with breast cancer and the loss of her father, influenced the story. She explores themes of mortality, aging, love, and grief, and then shares how she crafts such multifaceted characters and intricate timelines.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Leanne. Thank you so much for coming back on Moms Don't Have Time To Read Books to discuss Here One Moment. 

Liane: Yay. Thank you so much, Zibby. It's lovely to be back. 

Zibby: I took my time with this book. I read it in, like, over a long period of time versus the frantic, you know, inhalation of books because there were so many characters and I didn't want to rush my way through it.

So I spent the time and, like, indulged in everybody's story. And I feel like I just read, like, 15 different books in a, in the best possible way. So thank you. 

Liane: Oh, wonderful. Because it's, it's a long book and I think that's, well, I think that is the way to read it. Even though I say that and I'm a really fast reader.

reader myself. So I shouldn't really say I like it when my readers read slowly, but because there are so many characters and I don't think it's not a thriller. So I think if you're reading it quick, quick, quick, then you just get confused by the number of characters and maybe you're disappointed. 

Zibby: Yeah. No, it was so good.

And I've been like talking to everybody about it and posting about it and everybody I'm like, have you read this? Have you read that? Like, let's talk about it because there's so many. things to discuss. It's like the perfect book club book because it's about life itself and determinism and fate and free will.

And like, it's, it's really about all of that, like the most philosophical questions about life itself, but also it's just a great story. So there you go. Oh, 

Liane: thank you. That's exactly the reaction that I want to get from, from readers. 

Zibby: So, uh, Why don't you share a little for people who don't know what the book is really about and touch on that, but also explain how you Like, how you did the whole thing.

How did you come up with all the characters? This must have taken, you couldn't have done this on the fly, right? Or you'll just put the rest of us to shame. Like, how did you figure out all the different subplots and characters and timing and, you know, all of it? Tell me the whole story. 

Liane: So, should, do you want me to say what the book's about?

Yes, please, yes, yes, yes. Okay, first of all, 

Zibby: what's the book about? I'm sorry, that was too long a question. 

Liane: So, the book, the book is about an ordinary domestic flight out of Hobart in Tasmania, which is the little island state at the bottom of the country, which often gets left off. the maps and then the Tasmanians get very cranky about that.

And the flight, it's a delayed flight, so everybody's stuck on the flight for quite a while. And eventually it takes off, and then 10 minutes before landing, a very ordinary appearing woman of uncertain age. It's interesting. I've heard people talk about it and depending on the age of the person, they'll describe her as an old lady.

Um, even as in the way I had the passengers on the plane describe it differently. I've noticed people in real life describe it differently too. So yes, so she stands out. Uh, she's unremarkable in every way until she starts pointing at each passenger and telling them how and when they're going to die. And then some people don't take much notice, some people are a little bit, um, get a bit of a chill from this, and then they all get off the plane.

And a few months later, the first prediction comes true. And so then everybody starts thinking differently about it. And I came up with the idea when I was on exactly that same flight coming out of Hobart myself, it was also delayed. And I was stuck on the flight without a book, which has been, Always a mistake, never travel without a book.

Uh, and so I was looking around at all the passengers around me, and the, somehow the thought came into my mind, the very cheerful thought, that every single one of us on this plane was going to one day die. And I think when I look back at that time in my life, I think it's probably not surprising that I was thinking about my own mortality, because a few things that happened in the years leading up to it.

So first of all, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. Then we lost our dad. Then Then we had the pandemic and then I myself was diagnosed with breast cancer. And so my sister and I, we're both fine now. But I think also just being in your fifties is a time when you start thinking, you know, friends start to get these terrible diagnoses.

I also read an article that said, that described the time between 40 and 60 as sniper's alley, because it's the time when you're most likely to get one of those serious. Illnesses that could take you out. So that's what, that's what I was thinking about and, and that's what I was looking around at each of the passengers around me.

And so I was thinking, so will you be the one, will you make it to 100? Will you be the one whose life, you know, cause just thinking mathematically, it's likely that at least one of you on this plane, will your life will be cut unexpectedly short. And that's when I thought, imagine if somebody stood up and told us.

And I thought that's a really good opening scene for a novel, but then I did put it aside for a while, even though I liked that as an opening scene because I'd read, um, The Immortals, I think. The Immortals. Anyway, it was an excellent book. But it was about, I'll tell you, I'll tell you so you can put it in, what's that thing people say on podcasts?

The show notes. I'll put it in 

Zibby: my show notes. Yeah. 

Liane: On your show notes. Put it in your show notes. Chloe, somebody, it's a really good book, but they go to a psychic who tells them, I think she hands over an envelope. And it will say the date of your death. I think that was. Oh, the measure. The measure? No, not the measure.

No, because I've read other people's, I haven't read the measure. And I know that because I saw somebody saying somewhere she's read the measure and she's doing her own version of it, but I haven't, but I have read this, I had read this other one. Um, so it's not, and actually I was looking for a title for the book.

I was looking on Amazon. So I finished the book at this point and I saw one and I thought, Oh no, that sounded very. similar to mine. Anyway, it's something that's an interesting, it's not a new idea being told when and how you're going to, no, it's most people say when you're going to die. Anyway, then a few weeks later, I came up with who this woman could be, and that, which we obviously won't say.

And then I thought, no, well, that's interesting. And then I thought that's, that's I can work with that. And then, in answer to your question, so how did I, I do just start writing, and then see where it goes from there. So I'm not a planner, and I don't even plan my characters, so I didn't know who would be on the plane.

But it does mean, it doesn't just all fall perfectly into place. So I'm then, I'm just working it out as I go, and then I'm going back. to say, okay, now I know who this person was on the plane, I've got to put her on the plane and I've got to change things and I've got to give clues and I've got to give red herrings.

But I do manage to keep, I manage to keep that in my mind. I'm not so good. Sometimes the timeline's tricky. So my editors will say, check your timeline on this. And I always think, what timeline? I don't, I don't. It never really happened. Um, so then I've got to try. Make it all, all work. 

Zibby: Wow. So the characters who all have their backstories, were there any at the beginning at all that you were like, I definitely want to have a child.

I definitely want to have a midwife. I want to have an elderly couple, you know, nothing like that. 

Liane: I'm trying to remember. I probably had, um, I can't actually remember. I must've had somebody and I'm sure I would've thought I want a variety of people so that, because that's what makes it Interesting, and that makes sense on a plane anywhere, and obviously your reaction's going to be quite different depending on where you are in life.

I probably had Leo, who's the stressed out civil engineer, I must have had him because he plays a big part. But I really can't remember. 

Zibby: Okay. Well, that, that makes me feel better because I can't remember really anything in life anymore and I feel like I can really get through a conversation, so great.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean. 

Liane: I'm definitely at that stage of life. Oh my gosh. 

Zibby: Me too. And now apparently I'm in, what did you call it, like Smoking Alley or something terrible? Dodgers? Snipers? Way? Or something? I'm like so excited. smack in the middle of Sniper's Way, which is really what I wanted to hear today. Thank you very much.

Liane: I'm sorry. It's okay. It's so funny. Some people, when I've said that at events, some people have come up and said, um, can you please write in my book, Welcome to Sniper's Alley? 

Zibby: It does have a little more intrigue than midlife, so. 

Liane: Yes, I guess so, that's true. And some people have said I've just got through Sniper's Alley.

So I guess it's fine for me because it's, you're actually speaking to me on my 58th birthday. 

Zibby: Oh, happy birthday. Oh my goodness. Wow. I'm nearly at the, 

Liane: at the end of Sniper's Alley. I've nearly made it. 

Zibby: Oh, how are you celebrating? 

Liane: Talking to you, Zibi, that's, uh, 

Zibby: That's, this is the biggest celebration one could ever dream of.

Liane: Yeah, that's right. I'm going out to lunch with my mom and my sisters, uh, in a little while. That's lovely. 

Zibby: So, your book, I know I mentioned it's about fate and determinism and all these things, but it's also really a close examination of the most intimate relationships in your life, right? There are so many.

different times and stages of marriage or relationships, the toxicity that it brings in some cases, and, you know, the allure of the girl you couldn't have or things like that. So there is loss and the fear of loss, but then there is also the promise of love, uh, interspersed throughout. I don't know if that was on your mind as well with how relationships sort of evolve, but I just was wondering what Like, where are you on the whole marriage thing, relationships, the complications behind them?

Like, where, what, what perspective are you coming from? 

Liane: I don't know. What perspective? Well, I guess, what perspective am I coming from? I'm trying when I write to come from all different perspectives. perspective. So obviously I have the young bride and groom, and I have the older, uh, I have the empty nesters, and I have a, a single young man who's desperately looking or hoping for love.

But I myself, I've been with the same person for, well, we always remember because we got together when my two nephews, my two sisters were, pregnant and, um, they're in their twenties. So I know it's been 20, 20 years. So I guess that's, that's where I am personally. And I always remember Margaret Atwood saying she knows, she knows what it's like to, she's saying as a younger author, you have to try and imagine what it's like to be, you know, in your seventies or eighties, but she has experienced all those.

All those ages before her, so she can write from those perspectives. But I understand what she means and you can take yourself back there. Although often I forget, and I, what it was like to be back at that time. So I have to. It's easier to, if I wrote everybody from exactly where I am. So I do notice, but that my main characters are getting older and older and that I'm along with me, which I noticed actually another author, Margaret Drabble is a favorite author of mine.

I was from, and I discovered her late in her career. So, and I noticed reading her that her characters were getting older along with her. 

Zibby: Well, I love as a reader when that happens with authors who I follow because I am also getting older, right? So as opposed to someone who continues to write about people in their 20s, like, I'm not as interested.

I mean, sometimes, yes, of course, but like, I don't want to only read about people in their 20s when the things that I'm going through in my life are much later issues. So I like it when people take me through. It's like my guide. It's 

Liane: still interesting, aren't they? And I, and what I always found, I can so clearly remember reading a book in my thirties, and it was about a group of women all in their fifties, and they were all meeting new people and falling in love.

And I thought, Oh, so you're still You're still a person. You're still, it was really somehow, um, it was wonderful for me to see that. It wasn't like everything stopped. And so obviously you're still a person in your 70s and 80s. You keep having, um, you're still interested and interesting as, as you age. And yeah, a woman came up to me with my very first novel at an event.

And she said she read that and the Three Wishes is about three women because that's how old I was. They're in their early 30s. And she must have read it when she was about 12. And she said exactly what I just said about the, Oh, when you're in your 30s, yeah, you're still having, you're still a person, which made me laugh.

Zibby: I think I really realized that the most, not only are you a person, but if you don't resolve the issues you have, They, they linger. Like I interviewed my grandmothers and a bunch of the ladies they lived with in their nursing homes and I was doing this whole study of sort of about eating disorders and, you know, I wanted to see if the people, how elderly women dealt with their bodies who had eating disorders.

Anyway, this is getting off topic. But yeah. But everybody was still stressing out about it, and I'm like, wait, you guys are worrying about your body, like, nobody cares, like, it's fine. Why are you wasting your time thinking about this? Just go enjoy the day. But that's not how it works. Like you don't just all of a sudden put your issues down, whether they're relationships or anything else.

Liane: No, no, my mother's exactly the same. She says, Oh, so and so. She always dresses so beautifully and I'm so jealous because she always looks so lovely. I say, Oh, mum, you look lovely. Can't we all just feel we look lovely? Right. 

Zibby: Like, what's it going to take? Oh my goodness. Yeah. Well, there's also, I mean, the scenes that you wrote about loss, specifically Harvey's loss, and the way it feels to lose a young friend, and all of those feelings of picking up the phone and calling, and I don't know if this was, you know, inspired by your dad, or, and I'm so sorry for your loss, or just other people, you know, at this stage, I feel like we've all lost people that we love, and there is that instinct to do that, but to read it and feel it so viscerally Like, you just forget and want to talk to them and all of that.

Like, maybe just speak to that and how you, how it felt to you to write so intimately about a specific loss. Did that, was that cathartic for you? Or like, how did that make you feel? 

Liane: Yeah, I think every author, uh, when they're writing, even if they don't consciously do it, they start to work through something in their own life.

So I'm sure that I was thinking about, Uh, about my dad. Uh, and I still can't believe that. I, I can't believe I don't get to hear his final story because dad would always tell us things that, you know, he was, uh, interesting stories about things that had happened to him. So I can't believe that dad can't tell us that.

So this is what death was like, this is what happened next, because you'd have so many funny stories to hear. And yeah, picking it, because I often look at my phone and look at his last texts and just to not be able to text him or his emails and just things that, that happen that we think dad would have picked up.

And because dad sort of missed the pandemic, he would have been so interested in the just global events and that sort of thing. So yeah, but I had not ever, I mean, to be honest, I'd really, I'd led a very lucky life. So I had not experienced much loss. And I think that's why I was so interested in, um, Because obviously there are young people who experience, and I know my own mother did, who had a, she had a friend who she lost very, very young, who she, um, talked about, and so who was sort of part of our lives growing up.

So I just had to imagine, yeah, imagine what that, so Ethan lost his friend Harvey. And I think it's also interesting when you lose somebody who, who doesn't, if you were to go to name the most important people in your life, life, perhaps you wouldn't necessarily name that person. So then it's very confusing your feelings about that, about that loss, that maybe you think you don't even necessarily like them that much.

And in Ethan's case, he realises he really is not really important to him. But I think when I set out, I was also interested in what if that person, you really didn't like them, or, or they really weren't that important. But in some way, obviously, that it's, um, they were part of your life. So what happens when a minor character in your life, you lose somebody like that?

I think that must be a strange feeling. 

Zibby: Yes. I love also how you had the scene with the seagull towards the end. It was a seagull, that. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And how, There's always questions of, you know, Ken, is it really Harvey looking on, like, was he really trying to help and, you know, the scene was, was sort of funny in that way.

But also very poignant because there is always that question, you know, are, you know, which the book raises as well, like what's next and all of that. So. 

Liane: Yes. I, um, we always thought that we, like a lot of people, we had this thing that, um, butterflies were, you know, dad coming back to say hello. So I just remember on the first anniversary of his death, and I, we sort of made fun of mum a little bit about the, the butterflies, but on the first anniversary of his death, as I was walking out to the car, two butterflies came literally at my face and was sort of

You know, of course I burst into tears and couldn't believe it. It really felt really real. And then there was a, another day when I was walking the dog, walking my Labrador, Daisy, and a butterfly was coming along the walk with us. And so, and it was a beautiful sunny day and I was saying, Oh, look at that.

Dad's coming on the walk with us. And then my Labrador went, um, and ate the butterfly.

Oh, Daisy, you just ate Dad.

And I do think when I thought of that, I thought that's the sort of story Dad would love so much, the, um, the dog eating the, uh, the Labrador eating, um, the butterfly. Um, so I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle of the butterfly stroking my cheek and the dog eating the butterfly. I have no idea. No idea, but it's nice, it's, and I think it's, it just shows, um, how much we love people, that we want to look for signs in the universe that they're still with us because they are still with us.

Zibby: And do you believe in psychics in general, or mediums, or being able to tell the future? Have you been to, have you had your palm read and been to a psychic? What do you think about all that? 

Liane: I did go to a psychic to do research for this book. I had not had much experience with psychics before. I'm a skeptic, but I'm also really ready to believe.

I would love to believe, but so far I have not had any proof. And I would love to go to a medium who gave me a message. from my dad, but I'm also, I'd be really sceptical to think, yeah, I don't, I'd, I'd need something really real. So when I watch those shows, I always think I can, you know, they, the way they, but yeah, I want it.

Um, so I saw her, uh, I saw her psychic for this one, but I could tell right away that she'd clocked me. As soon as I walked in, she thought, okay, this is a middle aged woman and her children have just. you know, left home and she's now thinking, so what's next, because she was saying to me, um, so you've done everything for everybody else, um, all of your life, um, what about me?

Um, you're thinking, what about me? And I was thinking, no, it's always been about me, really, it's not, that's not me, because I have my children quite late too, so they're still, you know, very much at home, uh, and very much part of my life. So, and then I said, oh, then she was obviously looking for information.

So then she said, what do you do for a living? And I said, I'm an author. And she said, quite doubtfully, she said, well, I think you should do okay with that. Maybe don't change what you're writing about, um, but maybe you could change the way you market your books. Maybe you could think about putting them on eBay or something like that.

Zibby: Oh my gosh. That's so funny. 

Liane: I know. But it was funny. I was at one event and a woman came up to me with a hardcover copy of my very first book, Three Wishes, and she said I had to look everywhere for this and guess where she got it? She got it on eBay. So. 

Zibby: Oh my goodness. That's so funny. It came to him. Oh my gosh.

Would you, would you want to know when you're going to die and how? If you had the option? You know, 

Liane: it's funny, um, writing this book and I'd think about that, but obviously I would really avoid properly thinking about it because it wasn't until, you know, I was Uh, somebody, uh, another author, the wonderful Australian author Sally Hepworth was saying she was thinking about when she read about when you do those genetic tests and some people face the issue of, uh, it really is for them that that is reality for them.

Because what I'd get confused about with thinking about the premise of my book is that I would think, well, I don't believe it. Even if a few predictions came true, I think I would still think I don't believe it. I would change, uh, change my faith. Whereas with, if it's a genetic test and it's a serious illness, and you know exactly what the outcome would be, and I know in some families one sibling chooses to get the test and another sibling chooses not to, I would be one that would choose, yes, I would, I would want to know.

If information is available, And that's why I think when I was thinking of this thing on the plane, when I was thinking one day in the future somebody would be able to look back and they would be able to name the age and cause of death of every, every single passenger on this plane. So I was thinking that information will be available, it's just not.

quite yet. And that's why I couldn't bear thinking, I want to know now. 

Zibby: I kind of don't want to be on a plane with you, I have to say. I don't want to know what you're thinking. Anyway, well, thank you so much. I loved this book. I really, it made me feel think and feel and I carried it with me everywhere for a while and so you were always on my mind and all of your characters and everything and I mean, this is what great books do, right?

They make you rethink life as it is and So you take something with, with you when you leave. So thank you. 

Liane: Oh, thank you so much, Sibby. It's been lovely talking to you again. 

Zibby: You too. And happy birthday. Have a great day. Thank you. Go do something more fun than talking to me, but thank you for sharing a little bit of your, of your special day with me.

So enjoy. It was a lovely start to the day. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much. Okay. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you love it, please leave a review. And follow us on social at Zibby Owens and at Zibby Readers.