Ali Lowe’s debut novel, The Trivia Night, has many of the hallmarks of her favourite authors Liane Moriarty, Sally Hepworth and Vanessa McCausland in the way Ali weaves love, grief, jealousy and secrets into a story that has “best seller” and “make me into a movie” written all over it. And a Hollywood studio has optioned it, hopefully in my lifetime I’ll get to watch it and see if her pick for one of the leading roles comes true. She’s hoping for Sarah Snook or Elizabeth Debicki but if Hollywood insists on it being an American then Blake Lively is the actor of choice.
I was curious to meet Northern Beaches newest writing sensation to find out whether her book had to be vetted by its publisher’s defamation lawyers and whether the parents of her children’s friends were still talking to her. She laughed and told me very convincingly that “oh no, it’s a work of pure fiction.”
How disappointing!
The Trivia Night falls into the genre of “suburban noir” or “domestic noir.” A genre that got labelled around 2013 as a subset within crime fiction. Domestic noir usually takes place in homes, concerns itself mostly with female experiences, focuses on relationships, family secrets, issues of infidelity, infertility and shines a bright torch on them. You can tick all of these off in The Trivia Night.
We all know people who resemble the characters in Ali’s book. There’s the gym junkie, dippy hippy Bohemian, closet alcoholic, stitched up insecure organising type and the luxury label wearing and latest model luxury car driving bitch. You need to inject them with steroids, Botox and sometimes both, and then assign each of them a husband, for now anyway.
These characters present on the surface as having their lives together but if that were so it wouldn’t be such an unputdownable book. There’s a lot of dark humour and some uncomfortable moments as we ponder on our own attitudes to open marriage, binge drinking adults, excessive and endless home renovations, dealing with grief that threatens to undo you and maintaining your self-esteem when your world is falling apart.
Sitting across from fresh- faced, English accented, mother of three, Ali Lowe, she speaks with such vivacity about how the book came to be and the ambition it has unleashed in her to keep writing. She’d love to produce a book a year and I’m sure her publishers and growing legion of fans will be thrilled about that. Her next book, The Running Club, will be published next year. It’s about members of an elite running club who live in a wealthy, white picket suburb where secrets and rivalries simmer under the surface. Ali assures me The Running Club doesn’t have as many sex scenes as The Trivia Night – some people might be disappointed by that!
Ali Lowe has tapped into her writing genius. I have no doubt she’ll very shortly be mentioned in the same breath as her favourite authors. More power to her because there can never be too many page turning books for us to enjoy.
The Trivia Night is available everywhere but if you’re a Manly local pick up your signed copy from Humphreys on The Corso as they’ve got a big stash put aside for Tawny readers.