Big Little Lies

Big Little Lies

Adult mystery
"As Mrs. Ponder watched, one Elvis punched another across the
jaw. He staggered back into an Audrey. Two Elvises grabbed him from
behind and pulled him away. An Audrey buried her face in her hands
and turned aside, as though she couldn't bear to watch. Someone
shouted, 'Stop this!'
Indeed! What would your beautiful children think?
'Should I call the police?' wondered Mrs. Ponder out loud. But
then she heard the wail of a siren in the distance, at the same time
she heard a woman on the balcony begin to scream and scream."
If I was to ask you to guess the context in which the above
scenario takes place you'd probably guess wrong. Chapter 1 of Liane
Moriarty's Big Little Lies centers around a small Australian town's
public school. Mrs. Ponder is a neighbor whose property backs up on
the school playground. The moms and dads are behaving badly at the
school's trivia night to raise money to raise money to buy smart
boards for the classrooms. Before the night is over one of them will
be dead.
After setting that tantelizing scene, Moriarty takes readers
back six months to kindergarten orientation. The son of a newly
arrived and far from prosperous single mom (Jane) is accused of
hurting the gifted daughter of a high status career woman (Renee).
When school begins retaliations and counter retaliations commence.
But those aren't the only dramas among the kindy parents. Madeline's
ex husband and his new family have moved to town. Her youngest child
and his child are in the same class. The teenage daughter from the
first marriage is seeming to switch loyalties from the mom who
struggled to support her to the dad who abandoned her in infancy.
Wealthy Celeste and Perry's may not be quite what they portray on
social media.
The narrative is told from a lot of different perspectives.
You'll become privy to all the alliances and intrigues in that far
from sleepy small town. If you love a good mystery as much as I do
you'll get caught up in trying to deduce who the killer and victim
will turn out to be.
On a purrrsonal note, Monday night the meteorologists were gleefully
upgrading their Tuesday snow predictions from 2-5" to major storm. My
first thought was OMG! I didn't want class cancelled again. When I
woke up morning classes were cancelled until 10:00 which was fine with
me. Commuting was a challenge. The snow was mixed with sleet. When
I arrived on campus I saw an announcement that classes were cancelled
until the next day. I was so angry I ate three doughnuts when I went
in to work. The other students were so happy to have a snow day. I
was happy for them. I wanted to be happy too. But not only was my
class cancelled, but I couldn't feel the magic which was not
surprising since I wouldn't have sweet Joey cat to come home early
to. Amber says I didn't have a snow day since commuting and my shift
added up to eight hours. I'll take her word for that.
Today is the blood drive, which I'm very glad won't be snow
cancelled. I've been eating stuff to build my iron. If I can't
donate today I'll have to wait til next year. :P There will be an
exam prep session at 5:00. I'll go if I'm steady enough on my feet.
Great big shout outs go out to the other essential personnel who
managed to get through the storm to work and the best little cat in
the world who would have made the snow day magic even though I had to
work.
jules hathaway


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