Marian Keyes on rehab, menopause and the joy of revisiting one of her sexiest characters
Marian Keyes. is about to publish a new book, Again Rachel. Picture: PA Photo/Dean Chalkley
Marian Keyes is in bed. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, but she has just got back from a funeral and was feeling chilly. “It was a beautiful send-off,” she says as reassurance that she’s OK to talk. She is wearing a lilac hoodie and flashes a pastel pink manicure as she rearranges the pillows to get comfy. Within a few minutes it feels as if we are both having tea and biscuits under the duvet at her Dún Laoghaire home, as she gives me a virtual tour of her bedroom.
So far, so Marian Keyes. Loved by readers for her chatty style and satisfying storylines, she was for many years dubbed the queen of chick-lit, a phrase now as passé as Daniel Cleaver’s chat-up lines in . In fact, her novels have tackled hefty issues such as addiction ( ), bereavement ( ), domestic violence ( ) and depression ( ), always with her trademark lightness of touch. Yet despite selling more than 35m copies over the years, she is too often dismissed as a popular writer of books with pink covers (both of which are fine by her, thanks for asking).
