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Her protagonist’s voice is crystal cut with observations about gentrification, sexism and an economic system that tells women they are nothing without expensive serums and Peloton machines.
In one amusing scene we hear Anna’s inner demon try to persuade her that only a “weak, lazy loser” would walk away from a high-paid job in beauty PR. “You there, Anna Walsh, yes you, you dedicated grafter, you can buy anything you want right now! How about an air fryer? You never cook and you don’t know what an air fryer actually does, but that’s not important.”
Keyes says she was inspired by seeing several friends quit senior jobs after the pandemic, as well as by her younger sister Caitriona, an oncology nurse in New York, who decided to return home more regularly after lockdown.
For all the astute social observations, though, the book was born out of a need to hide away from the world. Two years ago, when we were emerging from the pandemic and Russia invaded Ukraine, Keyes said she felt she “had nothing left inside, no stamina for the sharp and pointy bits of the world”. She abandoned a book, “a 40-year opus” about people who had been friends since their 20s, because it involved characters who had got rich by unethical means. She didn’t want to write about “a world that I recognise where democracy is manipulated, where entitled people prosper”.
In fact, for the past two years she has not really read or watched the news. “I know that’s irresponsible. It was never meant to go on this long. I know broad brushstrokes and that’s all I can cope with.” It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that Keyes decided to write a “midlife forgive-yourself book”.
Keyes, who was born into a large Irish family (she’s the eldest of five siblings), says her life has been divided into two halves. In the first 30 years she was “completely clueless about myself … It was all about the bad boys … all about the fake passion of dysfunctional relationships.”
From a young age she found the world “frightening” and human beings “baffling”, so she studied people. “I wanted to know the rules. I wanted to know how to behave like other people.”
After studying law at University College Dublin she took an administrative job and moved to London, where she felt she was failing in all her aspirations. Her alcoholism and clinical depression spiralled and when she was 30 she attempted suicide, ending up in rehab for three months.
“I love for a person to admit something and for me to think, ‘Oh thank God, it’s not just me.’”
MARIAN KEYES
That’s when the second half of her life began. Shortly after rehab she got together with her husband, Tony Baines (a former IT system designer who since 1998 has worked, in his words, as her “dogsbody, finance person, IT person, driver”). She was impressed by how he loved books by female writers and Irish music and is “nice … and I deserved nice, so I thought, we’ll give it a go”.
Eighteen months later, she had her first novel published. Her books are all about the gap between the way we present ourselves and who we really are. “I love for a person to admit something and for me to think, ‘Oh thank God, it’s not just me.’”
Many of those admissions are in this novel. The struggle with the menopause and the frustrations of trying to get HRT (Keyes is a big advocate: “I love it”), the ugly feelings of jealousy and anger, and the anguish of falling out with a friend.
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“There is huge shame about female friendships that break down,” Keyes says. “There is a myth around female friendship that it just stays without challenges. When it doesn’t work, and I’ve been there, I have felt there is something wrong with me.”
We don’t get beyond our youthful pain or mistakes, even in our 60s, Keyes says. There are days when she feels “as ancient and wise as Mount Everest” and others when she just wants to browse Etsy for “Hello Kitty doorknobs”. She talks a lot about the need to do things that bring her joy, such as hiking and – more niche – framing Swedish tapestry (“I could just weep at the gorgeousness of it all”).
On the subject of Irish novelists, she has plenty of theories about why they have enjoyed so much recent success, especially the women. The influence of the Catholic Church has waned and social media has allowed them to be less parochial and more connected to their British and American counterparts. Of Sally Rooney, she says: “I’m so proud of a young Irish feminist Marxist woman getting people queuing outside bookshops!”
More generally, she believes Irish writers have moved on from “questions of who we are” to wider economic inequalities. “A lot of these great young writers came of age at the time of the economic crash in 2009 and it woke them up to how events in the wider world affect individuals. They expect to be listened to on a bigger stage. We were told to sit down and be quiet.”
No chance of that now. Keyes leans over and whispers conspiratorially: “Anger is kind of wonderful. It’s very, very empowering.” Better than becoming bitter, I suggest. “Yes, if it’s used properly, anger gets things done. Bitterness doesn’t change things – there’s no entry point for a conversation – whereas anger can open up the channels of communication.”
Look again at that portrait. There’s a fire raging behind that smile.
My Favourite Mistake (Penguin Random House) by Marian Keyes is out now.
The Times UK
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