Apples Never Fall

Apples Never Fall (2021) is a novel by Australian novelist Liane Moriarty. The book begins as a mystery thriller: Joy Delaney, a 60-something mother and retired tennis coach, suddenly vanishes on Valentine’s Day, and all signs point to her moody and volatile husband, Stan, also a former world-renowned tennis coach, as the likely killer. However, as the police search for Joy, the novel evolves into a probing psychological study of a profoundly dysfunctional family that contemplates The Power of Love, The Cost of Sacrifice, and the Toxicity of Blame.

Moriarty’s ninth novel, Apples Never Fall features provocative and emotional scenes with a cinematic sensibility and a cast of vivid characters in conflict with each other and their pasts. The novel quickly became an international bestseller, and even before its publication, it was optioned by NBC Universal for a television miniseries. Two of Moriarty's earlier novels, Big Little Lies (2014) and Nine Perfect Strangers (2018), were also made into television series by HBO and Hulu. In addition, Moriarty’s seventh novel, Truly Madly Guilty (2016), was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her other novels include The Husband's Secret (2013), The Chaperone (2012), The Last Anniversary (2005), and What Alice Forgot (2003).

The study guide uses the 2021 first US hardcover edition published by Henry Holt.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss domestic violence, child abuse, and mental health conditions, including eating disorders.

Plot Summary

Chapter to chapter, the novel moves between events in the three weeks after Joy’s disappearance on Valentine’s Day and events in the months prior to her disappearance. For convenience, this guide separates the two timelines.

Joy and Stan Delaney, married for nearly 50 years, are adjusting to retirement. For four decades, they ran one of Australia’s most respected tennis academies. Their four grown children—Troy, Logan, Amy, and Brooke—were once promising tennis players but have now settled into lives far from sports, finding their own successes (and failures).

One day while at home together, Joy and Stan answer a sudden knock at the door. They are stunned to see a bloodied and bruised woman. She identifies herself as Savannah Pagonis and begs for their help; her boyfriend beat her and she has nowhere else to go. Joy takes in the terrified young woman and even offers her one of the children’s old bedrooms, to the chagrin and bewilderment of Stan and their children.

The troubled young woman’s presence—and Joy’s maternal care for a total stranger—spark wounding discussions among the siblings about their upbringing under their father’s authoritarian discipline: He dreamed of coaching them all to professional tennis glory only to see each of those dreams collapse. Troy was too flashy and volatile on the court; Brooke suffered from migraines caused by the stress of competition; Logan drifted, too noncommittal for any success; and Amy was beset by doubt and uncertainty.

Savannah quickly becomes a fixture at the Delaney home, doing all the cooking. During the Christmas holiday, tempers flare, and the family begins the difficult process of addressing decades-old emotional wounds. Logan investigates Savannah’s background and finds questionable details in her story about a supposedly abusive boyfriend, while Amy discovers Savannah was briefly involved in an internet scam that involved selling fake tennis memorabilia.

Concerned, Joy enters Savannah’s room while she’s out. She discovers that Savannah is the sister of retired tennis star Harry Haddad, a protégé Stan developed years earlier until Haddad suddenly, inexplicably, switched coaches and subsequently won multiple Grand Slam titles.

Under pressure from the family, Savannah confesses to knowing the Delaneys and being raised by an abusive mother who starved her, trying to mold her into a world-class ballet dancer. She recalls coming to the Delaney house once, desperate for food when her brother was training, and the family summarily turned her away. Savannah agrees to leave the house—but before she packs, she tells Stan it was Joy who encouraged Harry to leave Stan’s academy.

Stan can’t handle this revelation, and for weeks the couple alternates between bitter fights and long periods of silence. On Valentine’s Day, Joy—determined to reconcile with Stan—bakes him apple crumble pie, his favorite. Stan, however, blows up over what he considers Joy’s deliberate destruction of his coaching career. He walks out, and when he returns—he later tells police—Joy is gone. After several days, the family reports her missing, and the police immediately suspect Stan. The kids aren’t sure. As the investigation continues, Stan learns that Harry Haddad is returning to competitive tennis.

As the Delaney siblings struggle with the disappearance, they assess their lives: Brooke, separated from her husband, runs a floundering homeopathic physiotherapy clinic. Logan, whose longtime girlfriend Indira left him, indifferently pursues teaching business communications at a community college. Troy, a ruthless but successful stock investor, struggles to work out details in a plan for his ex-wife to use embryos they froze when they were married. Amy, who works part time as a taste tester, is haunted by various mental health conditions.

After grainy footage from a neighbor’s security camera shows Stan struggling to put a roll of carpet in his car the night Joy went missing, the police believe they have sufficient cause to arrest him. While they’re at the house, however, Joy arrives. She quickly explains that she was emotionally confused and needed time away, so she impulsively agreed to go away with Savannah on an off-the-grid retreat for three weeks. She left a note, but Stan deduces that a faulty refrigerator magnet let the note slide to the floor and then the family dog ate it.

Revived by her retreat, Joy is ready to make her marriage and retirement work. Stan explains to the police that he replaced a carpet that Joy disliked to make up for quarreling with her. The family reunites and pledges to work through their complicated and messy emotions.

As the novel closes, Savannah boards a plane and heads back home to Adelaide. She reveals that before she left months earlier, she drugged her mother and left her locked in her bedroom with only a few protein bars and bottles of water, certain her mother would slowly starve to death. Savannah is returning to Australia to see whether her plan worked.