57 pages • 1 hour read
Liane MoriartyThe Last Anniversary
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Liane Moriarty
Liane Moriarty is a Sydney-based novelist born in 1966. She is one of Australia’s most successful novelists. While pursuing a career in advertising and marketing, including copywriting, Moriarty obtained a master’s degree in creative writing from Macquarie University in Sydney; her first novel, Three Wishes, was written as part of her degree and was published in 2004. Moriarty has written nine novels in total, all at least partially set in her hometown of Sydney. Moriarty’s novels are partly “regional fiction” because of the centrality of their settings to the stories: They draw on recognizable landmarks, and the city’s architecture, culture, diversity, and history inform many of Moriarty’s themes.
All of Moriarty’s novels focus on the conflicts that arise from intense network relationships, combining tropes from the mystery and romance genres. Her protagonists tend to be women in their 30s who are shown managing the multiple demands of families, romantic relationships, careers, friendships, and personal satisfaction. Moriarty’s novels often depict privileged white women who explicitly debate questions relevant to white feminism from a socially privileged perspective. For instance, many of them are balancing families and careers, but this balancing act is made easier by high-paying careers, husbands with high-paying careers, considerable “villages” of nearby supportive family and friends, and social safety nets. Moriarty’s novels have been praised for accurate and sympathetic depictions of mental illness and for raising issues of sexual or physical violence perpetrated against woman. Every Moriarty novel features a female character whose life appears “perfect” to outsiders but who experiences deep unhappiness.
Historical Context: Key Reference Points of Australian Social History
Moriarty references several historical events that contextualize her characters’ abilities, motivations, and desires.
The novel touches on the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by soldiers returning home from World War I; Connie and Rose’s father is described as experiencing PTSD, as is his neighbor who ends his own life. In the early 20th century, PTSD was not a recognized condition; the traumatic effects of war were not fully understood, and many affected veterans and their families lived without help and suffered social stigma. Over 400,000 Australian men fought in World War I, and thousands of survivors experienced PTSD, described at the time as “shell shock.” The effect of PTSD and associated social stigma is now recognized; Anzac Day is a day of remembrance and gratitude dedicated to the soldiers of Australia and New Zealand in World War I, including those who returned from the conflict.
Moriarty uses the context of the Great Depression of 1930s as a setting for the events of the historical mystery of the novel. Connie and Rose fabricated the identities of Jack and Alice in 1932, when Australia was experiencing economic turmoil and civil unrest. Connie and Rose’s father was unemployed, and after the death of their mother, the sisters became even more frugal and entrepreneurial. While Connie and Rose are criticized for commodifying a tragedy (and then for fabricating the tragedy), poverty spurred their actions when they had no other recourse to support themselves.
The Jack and Alice mystery is compared in the novel to the disappearance of Harold Holt and draws on this story for the way in which a disappearance can take hold of the popular imagination. In 1967, Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming in a rough sea. He was presumed dead, but his disappearance caused great public interest and gave rise to many conspiracy theories.
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