Louise O'Neill: '"Don’t,” he warned me. “Don’t get attached until we have the keys in our hands".'

"I have become obsessed with Daft, to a somewhat unhealthy degree. Sometimes I pretend I’ve won the lottery and put my minimum price at two million euro, just so I can marvel at how appalling rich people’s taste in kitchens is"

Louise O'Neill. Picture: Miki Barlok

When I was a teenager, much of my reading material was pilfered from my mother’s bedside locker. That was where I found Maeve Binchy for the first time, Marian Keyes too. It was also where I came across Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones, and others whose names escape me now. 

There were many differences between the Irish and British authors but what I remember clearly from the latter was the idea that my thirties would be non-stop dinner parties at which I would be set up with chinless wonders called Toby and Nigel, men who worked in banking and had braying laughs.