APPLES NEVER FALL (2021)
By Liane Moriarty
Macmillian Australia, 516 pages.
★★★★
Recently I reviewed the movie King Richard, so how about a follow-up tennis novel? Apples Never Fall is the latest novel from Liane Moriarty of Nine Perfect Strangers fame and it bears passing resemblance to King Richard in that it deals with an Australian version of a tennis-obsessed family, a great champion, and adjustment fallout when one’s coaching days are over.
Stan and Joy Delaney once ran a tennis school in Sydney, but Stan is now 70 with bad knees and Joy is 69, sick of Stan’s slovenly ways and moaning, and in need of something more in her life than Stan and the travails of her four children: Amy (39), Logan (37), Troy (35), and Brooke (29). To paraphrase a famous movie line, each of them could’ve been a contender, but none reached their potential and Stan lost the student who actually became a champion when Harry Haddad moved on to a different coach and won three majors before he got injured and retired.
It’s hard to put that behind you when you learn that Harry is trying to make a comeback. It’s also a bitter pill to swallow when the kids have seemingly made a hash of their respective lives. All four won college tennis scholarships, but three turned them down. Amy has three flatmates, is in therapy a lot, and has part-time gigs as a taste tester and in market research. Logan—who once beat up Harry–has just broken up with his longtime girlfriend that Joy hoped would produce a grandchild, Troy is once-divorced and remarried to a (gasp!) Yank, has become (double gasp!) a money-obsessed commodities trader, and quit playing tennis in college (quell horror!). Poor Brooke suffers from migraines, runs a failing OT clinic, and worries that her marriage might also be crumbling.
Collectively they are prone to blame their parents for their struggles though Joy imagines, “All four of her children each fervently believed is separate versions of their childhood that often didn’t match up with [her] memories, or each other’s for that matter.” After all, Stan and Joy can’t possibly be to blame for much; everyone agrees they have a “perfect” marriage. The only blemish–other than losing Harry—is that Stan is so conflict-adverse that he walks away from troubling things and sometimes stays away for several days. And, no, there’s no mistress or other such secret involved.
Stan and Joy get a jolt when a young woman shows up on their doorstep, claiming she is fleeing from domestic abuse. Stan thinks she’s not their problem, but Joy invites her in. Before you can say love-40, Savannah has moved in. You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out that Joy sees her as a granddaughter substitute or to predict her presence will make Stan uncomfortable. Savannah is content to be a live-in Jill-of-all trades: gardener, cleaner, chef, chauffer…. At this stage of the novel we wonder if we are moving into Single White Female terrain. Is Savannah as advertised, or is something sinister lurking behind her façade? The siblings, especially Troy, are convinced of it. When Logan watches a TV show and hears exactly the exact words he heard Savannah use to describe her backstory, he’s convinced as well. Both daughters are also on edge for various reasons. Jealous brats or parental guardians?
Another crisis occurs when, this time, Joy disappears. After 17 days, foul play is suspected and that’s all you’re getting out of me. This is one of those novels that hinges on appearances, deceptions, excuse-making, over-active imaginations, and legitimate concerns. In tennis, love equals zero. Likewise, in both tennis and relationships double faults, and things that are out of bounds are bad. But the ultimate question is what is at stake. There’s a world of difference between losing a point and losing a match point. I leave it to readers to discover how this match plays out.
Rob Weir
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