Made Marian

Arriving at Marian Keyes’ lilac-bricked southside home, nay, oestro-palace, one thing seems certain. Unlike quite a few of her characters, this woman is very much In A Good Place.

As her writing might suggest, Keyes is wholly convivial and candid; more down-to-earth, feel-good and Everywoman-ish than anyone with 10 million (and counting) sales under their belt is inclined to be. She doesn’t so much do interviews as comfy chinwags.

Having put demons like alcoholism, depression, and “a life refracted through a prism of self-digust” out to dry, Keyes pulled herself back from this recumbent state to produce some of the best-loved fiction of recent times. A failed suicide attempt, being optioned by Hollywood – Keyes herself is the first to admit that she does absolutely nothing by halves.
What is immediately striking about Keyes, and her work, is that though she counts herself among the throngs of Ireland’s new breed of nationality-free urbanites, she still retains that twinkly-eyed Irish charm that the Celtic Tiger managed to irrevocably maim.

Effectively knowing her Manolos from her Miu Miu moccasins, and peppering her conversations with excited shrieks of ‘G’waaan!’, she is nine parts Carrie Bradshaw to one part Mrs. Doyle. With exquisite taste in interior design, a lime green VW Beetle in the driveway, and a wall of handbags that would put any woman worth her salt to morbid shame, Marian Keyes, to paraphrase Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, has done it her way. With that, let the girly chinwagging commence…

You recently landed a column in Marie Claire, didn’t you? It’s kind of like the holy grail of girlie journalism…
I know! I’m so lucky! I can’t believe it. How lucky am I? About a year ago I wrote something for Cara, and Marie O’Riordan liked the column. She asked me to cover London fashion week for Marie Claire. Around June I was doing promotion and she heard me on the radio going on about feminism and post feminism, which she liked. She told me I could write what I want. Normally they give a tight brief and you’re writing something you don’t believe in. Here, I’m just unfettered. Sometimes it’s serious and sometimes it isn’t – anything from feminism to handbags.

How are the journalism deadlines working out for you?
Well, I’m a big swot anyway, so I get everything done miles in advance. Today, I wrote my column which doesn’t have to be in until the end of February. Doing stuff at the last minute horrifies me. I’m fixated on punctuality. Editors love me!

I read in your biography that the writing came ‘pretty much out of the blue’ in your 30s. Was it really that sudden?
I tried journalism once. I did the law degree and tried to get onto the DCU post-grad course. When I didn’t make the cut – and I had so little self-esteem at the time – I was mortified at having ever even tried. I took rejection really bad – you know when sometimes knocks make people stronger, they think, “I’ll show them?” Well, I didn’t want to show them and I slunk away and abandoned the idea of doing anything with words. But my mother’s very funny, and a great storyteller. My family is very funny and they’re very good anecdotally – a high value is put on being able to tell a good story. But then, I always thought that couldn’t decide you wanted to write. I didn’t know old fuckin’ eejits could do it. That’s very Irish isn’t it? (Irish accent): ‘Ah sure the likes of us now, where would we be goin’ writin’ a buke?’ Especially Irish women! Ireland is so famous for writers, and they’re all men writers, apart from Maeve Binchy. There was no tradition to follow. Young Irish women did not have a voice when I started writing. There was no precedent so that would have discouraged me, and you don’t want to be sticking your head above the parapet and getting into trouble. Getting above yourself!

You have been credited as one of the first female Irish writers of note, so how do you feel that you have blazed this trail then?
Oh you’re lovely…I don’t feel like I’ve done that at all. I think because there are so many writers now, we were just ready. Ireland came of age as a nation and Irish women for the first time – I mean we’re still second class citizens but we’re not muzzled anymore. Irish women could be great storytellers but it wasn’t really done. Nice women didn’t do that sort of thing. So I feel part of a generation that has suddenly found its voice, and that Irish women don’t necessarily define themselves as entirely Irish anymore, but part of the post-feminist, urban phenomenon. We’d have more in common with women in London and New York than women in Ireland 20 years older than us. We’re the first generation to be denationalized. I mean, I still feel profoundly Irish, and the writing is very Irish, but the issues we write about transcend nationality.

Speaking of which, do you keep copies of the books in different languages? Like maybe ‘Sushi For Beginners’ in Japanese?
It’s really weird! With Japanese books you have to start at the back! And Hebrew looks upside down. It’s gas.

After DCU didn’t happen, you headed off to London – what made you go there?
I couldn’t bear being in Ireland. I was 22 and it was 1986. When I think of Ireland back then I think of it in black and white. The place was rife with poverty and corruption and priests standing on altars telling people what to do with their bodies. Ireland was a theocracy, and a poor one at that. I felt like I was choking. I went to London with the intention of going to New York, but as is the story of my life, I only got part of the way.

What was different about London?
I couldn’t stand the fact that everyone knows you in Ireland... you couldn’t walk four steps without tripping on a cousin. In London, you could reinvent yourself, and I hated myself that much I was thrilled for that opportunity. I was living in a squat in Hackney and I thought it was great. When you’re brought up as middle class it was exciting to be on the dole, with your last priority being food. All that mattered was getting scuttered.

You often say that by the time you got to 30, you were in a very ‘dark place’…
It was terrible. Actually, it turned out to be the best year of my life. I had worked in an accountant’s office for a very long time, and I hated it. I was unable to do anything, I had no hope or self-propulsion. I felt I would die and be found, aged 106, at the calculator with rigor-mortis, living with the 40 cats and one-bar heater. That misery was always there. It wasn’t the job, it’s just my attitude was so negative about everything. I had that passive-aggressive victim mentality, where even though I hated the life I had created, I couldn’t do anything to change it. Classic alcoholic thinking. Everything is about attitude, and mine was turned inwards and very bleak.

It’s a real revelation to hear you talk like this. Even though you’ve spoken at length about your alcoholism, your writing doesn’t really allude to that dark way of thinking.
When I was 30, I was suicidal literally. I did try suicide four months after I turned 30, and I shut down. I stopped eating, seeing people, and was never present in conversations. All I wanted to do was drink. But by the time I was 31, I was sober, and I had the three-book deal. It was so enjoyable. I’d never done anything I was proud of, until I started writing Watermelon.

Do you ever get sick talking about Marian Keyes, alcoholic-turned-author? Does it bother you that it’s brought up so much?
What does bother me is that people might think, ‘here she goes again with the sorry old story’. From the point of view I don’t want to talk about it if I’m boring people. I guess it’s still the most interesting thing about me, and it comes up a lot, but it’s pivotal to who I am and to what I write. I don’t drink but I still have the propensity to be very depressed. The disease hasn’t gone away.

Do you miss booze at all?
I don’t miss it, but I miss being able to shut down the odd time, the escape that alcohol brings. Like at the end of a hard week, being able to let off steam…it’s not possible via any mood-altering substances. In terms of peace of mind, what I have now is so much better than the drinking life, but yeah, there is that desire to get out of your head every once in a while.

And when you came home in 1998, the Celtic Tiger had come in and ‘done its business’…
Well, I was just delighted that the clergy was being humbled. As you can tell, I can’t stop giving out about them, there aren’t enough years in my life to do it! Economically, it was far less depressing. There were changes that weren’t pleasant, like racism. Before, nobody was ever arsed coming here. After people had been so good to Irish abroad, I really felt it wasn’t on.

So is there anything that has taken the place of booze?
I started cooking recently, which I’m quite proud of. I loved that I could never cook before.

You’re known for your devotion to M&Ms…
I gave up sugar a few weeks ago. Not for poxy detox reasons, just ‘cos I kept getting sick. I was told if I changed my diet it would help. I was so desperate I was prepared to give up chocolate. I’m not missing it. It’s really weird, it’s like I hit rock bottom with it, like I did with the drink. It was making my life so unliveable and I thought, ‘what’s the point’? So I gave it a go and I’m not missing it. I’m not thinking of it as permanent. I’d rather be well at this stage. Normally the smell of chocolate would make me dizzy. It’s not willpower, it’s self-preservation. I would eat the whole box, no bother. A box would be too small. Once I start, God knows where it’ll end!

Sounds like you’ll always have that compulsive element to your personality…
Completely. I’m addicted to everything. I have no dimmer switch, and I go for things in a major way. I never do anything in moderation.

It’s funny…there’s a real parallel there with Candace Bushnell, who also attempted suicide before she started writing.
Did she? No way! I didn’t know that at all! I met her, she’s so beautiful, but she’s got very delicate looks. She wasn’t funny, she was quite ballsy, and mouthy. A hard drinker. Not taking any crap, which was admirable…

I’m guessing you were a Sex & The City fan?
Oh...loved it! The shows and the bags were more fun for me than the storyline. But were you watching Celebrity Big Brother there? I went through this terrible slump when Big Brother ended last year – I was bereft! I feel embarrassed for reality TV snobs – they’re so out of touch they don’t realize what they’re missing out on from an anthropological view. We went to one of the evictions! I can’t tell you – it was one of the best nights of my life. I have such a crush on Davina. I want to be her when I grow up. I just stood there yelling, ‘I love you Davina!’

After the success of the adaptations of Watermelon and Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, would writing specifically for TV or film ever interest you?
Never. It would drive me mental as I’m too much of a control freak. I like what I do and I like that it’s just my voice. Writing for TV goes through so many people that the vision is diluted. The writer does two rewrites and gets sacked, and someone else works on your beloved. No way.

Shame, because Irish TV could really do with something new…
I’ve been asked by Granada and hundreds of people, but funnily, RTE have never once come near me. RTE is piss poor, and I don’t know what they’re looking for, but they’re so out of touch. They come up with nothing original and by the time they recreate it, it’s far too late.

So what do you make of Cecelia Ahern?
I’m delighted that young Irish women have such a successful role model. I think it’s fantastic and she’s done so well internationally. I hope it inspires the up-and-coming generation and shows that they should have no limits. I hope it gives women confidence and ambition. As for the people who might take away from that – well, they do say that a well balanced Irish person has a chip on both shoulders…

Have you ever encountered any of that begrudgery yourself?
For a long time, I didn’t get reviewed seriously. I never got invited onto Rattlebag or The View.

Do you think it’s because you’re viewed largely as a ‘chick-lit writer’? Does the label ever bother you?
It annoys me because it’s levelled against women full stop. It’s another way to put women down and oppress them, like ‘oh you silly little woman with your little fluffy stories about shoes and romance’. I absolutely don’t buy into it. I think ‘chick lit’ gave post-feminist women a voice. It articulates the issues completely unique to our generation…our relationship with food, with jobs, with childbirth, men and other addictions. We’re the first generation to reap the rewards from the work women did in the ‘60s and we’re in unchartered territory. ‘chick lit’ is incredibly valuable from that point of view. It irritates me that men put it down, and irritates me when other women try to align themselves with men, as if men have the monopoly on intellectual criticism. I used to be so easy to bully, but now I will so go to bat for the genre, and I won’t take shit from anyone. It’s so clear that it’s an anti-feminist stance.

It’s funny, because I’m sure quite a few guys might enjoy some of the books.
I know, most of them are pretty shamefaced about reading them because of the covers – but I think they’re so surprised because of the humour, and they think it’s funny. A lot of them have been man enough to admit that.

One thing that makes me laugh in the books is the ever-presence of the Irish Mammy.
Yeah, the book I’m writing at the moment, Mammy Walsh is in it. On my website, Mammy Walsh does a problem page, and she gives really cruel, reactionary advice. I’m devoted to my mother, and she’s so kind, but there’s that Irish mammy who force feeds you and has opinions that are so devout. Or rather, they’re devout and well-behaved, then they turn around and say something really raunchy. It’s a character that’s very dear to my heart, and something I’d love to write about more.

It’s not surprising that in the books that most of the characters are laughing in the face of adversity.
Well that would be very much me. I know it’s a common theme – damaged people learning how to survive. Because of what I went through, from nearly going under to being lucky enough to develop mechanisms for survival, I want to write about it, and it comes up so often.

I do love the bolshie character of Jojo in The Other Side Of The Story, too.
I’d like it if we stopped being post-feminists and became feminists again, or maybe neo-feminists. I wanted to create a strong woman working in a man’s world and who thinks like a man. What cripples so many women is the need to be liked. We think if we make tough decisions, people will take against us. Men aren’t encumbered by that consideration. I wanted to write a woman who was sympathetic, but a role model for how it can be done. If I had any choice, she’s the woman I wish I could be.

Would you ever write a book with a male protagonist?
A bit like with Nick Hornby (in How To Be Good). I have no plans to…I think I know my limitations and I don’t like doing stuff where I feel uncertain. I won’t go to a place where I haven’t got the talent, and I won’t waste my time trying it.

Who do you like to read yourself?
I love thrillers. Val McDermott’s stuff…I enjoy them so and they used to depress me terribly. I love books about Africa, like Alexander Fuller’s, Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight, that was amazing. I like Kate Atkinson, Eleanor Lipman, or Mavis Cheek, people who are described as a modern day Jane Austen – which is funny because I don’t like Jane Austen at all.

Why not?
I find her irritating...her sentence structures are too arch and complicated. I’m exhausted reading her. Everything is tricky in those books!

What music do you like?
Oh I knew you were going to ask me that! Tony is the CD addict, and I only listen to music in the car, like 70s disco, and En Vogue, who are so much better than Destiny’s Child. I love The Smiths and Bruce Springsteen. I haven’t a clue about modern music, all these Britneys and Christinas and Girls Aloud, who I just don’t get. Funnily enough, I’ve just read Anthony Kiedis’ biography, Scar Tissue. How do you pronounce his surname? I love them, partly because they’re recovering drug addicts. I have a real soft spot for recovering alcoholics and addicts. Reading the book was like taking loads of drugs without having to do it, like living vicariously through a Red Hot Chili Pepper!

Marian Keyes’ new novel The Other Side Of The Story is out now, published by Poolbeg Press.