Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

 

In September, we met at Cathy's house to discuss Amy's pick Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty. In the novel, Joy Delaney, wife of Stan Delaney and mother of four adult children, goes missing. The story is told by many different narrators revealing mysterious details and uncovering memories that make the reader wonder whether or not Stan is guilty of foul play. Stan and Joy ran a successful tennis academy for decades but heated emotions about past events start to come to the forefront and shed new light on old relationships. And what about the strange woman who Joy informally adopts after showing up on the Delaney's doorstep one night? Is she a victim of domestic violence or a crafty schemer, as some of the children suspect? By the time the reader gets to the end, we learn the truth, not just about what happened but the true essence of what makes each character tick.

The book was generally well received. We enjoyed that it was a captivating page-turner with many surprises along the way. It was like several books in one. In the first part, the mystery is set up and we get a glimpse of how each character portrays her or himself. Then, in the middle, we start to understand how the main characters actually are, and in the end, we see the resolution. Also, the details contributed in many ways and were all buttoned up at the end, such as the sliding magnet, paper-shredding dog, and laundry-stealing cat. It was also a plus for tennis enthusiasts (Lisa) since tennis took on a significant role in the novel (but everything was accessible for non-tennis players as well). Even the tennis-playing styles of the characters lent to their own character development.

Some critiques were that the book was rather long, the constant change of narrator could become dizzying, and that as mystery/thriller/police-procedural books go, this one was kind of tame. It really was more about the character development than the mystery.

We discussed different characters and what we thought of their behavior, for example, we explored a key secret of Joy's, why she did what she, and whether we agreed with her decision. We talked about Stan and his motivations, all of the adult children, and of course Savannah. All in all, the book led to a very focused discussion and inspired many of us to read some of Moriarty's other works.

We were sad that Liz had to miss the call and hope to see her next time. Karen is up next and we are super excited to see her in person next month! Will we be able to coordinate a bookclub around her visit? We'll have to leave you in suspense.