Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

I wasn’t sure if this would be my sort of read – especially after seeing Moriarty’s book Big, Little Lies making it to the small screen with a lot of glam and transported to the U.S. But I felt like a contemporary novel and pretty soon I was swept into the lives of friends Erika and Clementine, and the weight of a recent terrible event that hangs between them, threatening their friendship.

Truly Madly Guilty is a story about a simple suburban barbecue. Vid and his wife Tiffany, plus daughter Dakota, are neighbours of Erika’s and her husband Oliver and Vid loves to entertain. A recent convert to classical music, Vid is fascinated by Clementine who is a professional cello player. On the day of the barbecue, however, Erika and Oliver invite Clementine and her husband Sam and their little girls for afternoon tea. Erika and Oliver have a serious proposal to put to their friends.

Moriarty has a knack for keeping the reader hooked. The story see-saws between the day of the barbecue and afterwards, so that we don’t know what it was that happened that was so bad that Clementine gives talks to various community groups about it. Not until about halfway through the book. And thanks to a lapse of Erika’s memory, we don’t get the full story until almost the end.

Another thing she does really well is creates tension through her characters. Erika has had a difficult childhood, never able to bring friends home because her house is a disaster zone, her mother a hoarder. Erika and Oliver are both serious professionals who find socialising difficult, yet they are a tight couple, doing everything together. But both are struggling with the effects of their childhoods. 

Talented Clementine is the golden girl by comparison. But Clementine’s husband Sam, the terrific dad who wants more kids, doesn’t understand Clementine’s music; he's struggling at work and can’t talk to Clementine about it. Clementine isn't great at the stress associated with auditions so everyone's tiptoeing around her feelings.

And then there’s Tiffany, who has something of a dark past, and who doesn’t understand why her daughter loves to read so much. Is there something wrong with her? Vid solves everything by throwing money at it, but is affectionate none the less. If he knew Tiffany's secret, would he forgive her?

Moriarty stirs all this guilt, anxiety and secrecy into the mix then adds one terrible event with adults behaving badly and then having to deal with the fall-out. How the characters interact with each other afterwards creates plenty to keep you reading. One thing is for sure, nobody is going to be quite the same again.

Truly Madly Guilty is a terrific read, engaging and thought-provoking - a classic page-turner. I'll be picking up more by this author, for sure.

 Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: Truly Madly Guilty