Even before Lucky was a book, the Toronto author knew it would be a TV series. “I was saying to my agent, I should just write a pilot,” laughs Marissa Stapley as I interview her on stage at my recent Writers Room Series event at the Park Hyatt in Toronto. “I shouldn’t even write a book.” That’s how vivid the title character of her story was: a con-woman-slash-grifter caught up in a house of cards built with a deck of lies – and in possession of an unclaimed lottery ticket.
With her infectious, school-dropoff-fun-mom energy, Stapley is a natural-born storyteller who pulls from her days as a sports reporter, a bartender, a stable hand, a magazine editor and – get this – a cemetery gardener. (She absolutely loved that last job, for the record). Now, after the runaway success of her 2021 bestseller Lucky, which, just as she imagined, has recently been turned into an seven-episode Apple TV series, she adds Hollywood insider to the list.
Stapley has written five books under her own name, including a domestic thriller, The Last Resort, and a rock ’n’ roll love story, The Lightning Bottles, as well as rom-coms under a nom de plum, Julia McKay. (The next one, Something About September is out this month). She knows the importance of an intriguing first sentence. And Lucky has a doozy: “Someone had left a baby outside the nunnery.” It was, Stapley said, “a lightning bolt moment. I was sitting in my living room, and I wrote that line. [Then it was] like Lucky was driving, and I was just along for the ride.”
That strike of inspiration was coupled with a story she stumbled upon while listening to the radio in the car during a family ski trip with her husband and two daughters. The hosts were talking about a massive lottery payment that had gone unclaimed, when one hypothesized, “Maybe the ticket holder was wanted for a crime, and that’s why they couldn’t come forward.” That idea drew her in.
She wasn’t alone. Reese Witherspoon picked the novel for her Book Club, which has similar cachet to Oprah and Jenna Bush Hager’s seal of approval. And through her production company, Hello Sunshine, the Hollywood star brought Lucky to the smallscreen, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, no less. Stapley may have also manifested that bit of dream casting. “As soon as I saw her in The Queen’s Gambit, I just knew,” says the author.
So did Taylor-Joy. She was the first and only actress they approached. “There’s something about a character who can read everyone around her – but struggles to read herself,” the actress has said. Annette Bening, Drew Starkey and Timothy Olyphant round out the high-wattage cast in the adaptation. For Stapley, it’s been a whirlwind of set visits, red-carpet premieres and non-stop promotion.
But she took a breather to answer our Shelf Life questions and shine a light on her own favourite books – past and present.
What’s the best book you’ve read this year?
I know I’m not alone in this: I adored Heart the Lover by Lily King. I have a soft spot for sequels. [King’s Writers & Lovers came out in 2020.] I loved the subtlety of this one – and how absolutely heartrendingly gorgeous the story was.
What book can’t you wait to dive into?
I’ve been carrying [2023 bestselling Brooklyn Heights society story] Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson with me from city to city this summer. Seriously – it has travelled with me from Los Angeles to New York City and back again, and I haven’t found a moment to read, which is unusual for me! Now that I’m at my Haliburton cottage with a little time off, I’m about to head down to the dock with that book in hand. I can’t wait!
What’s your favourite book of all time?
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I’ve never read anything like it, before or since. I also don’t tend to reread novels, but I’ve returned to that one multiple times. It feels like a master class in plot and heart.
What book completely changed your perspective?
We Will Be Jaguars by Nemonte Nenquimo. It made me think of the degradation of our rainforests from a deeply human perspective. And it also gave me faith in the strength of humanity to fight, at a time when I was feeling a bit hopeless about the state of the world as a person and as a parent.
If you could have dinner with any author, living or dead, who would it be?
Martha Gellhorn! She was a war correspondent who, because she was a woman, couldn’t get press accreditation from the British government to report on the Normandy landings. So, she stowed away on a ship by locking herself in a bathroom. She was also one of the first journalists to report from the Dachau concentration camp after it was liberated. Her essay collection The Face of War made me want to be a journalist and her novellas made me want to be an author. I think we’d have a lot to talk about. And I wouldn’t ask her about her marriage to Hemingway because, to me, that’s the least important thing about her.
