Differentiating Marian Keyes from the protagonists of her books is not easy. When she discussed her novels today with Martha Kearney for BBC’s Talking Books, it became clear that so much she writes about is drawn from what she knows: real life. Whether it’s depression or relationships, friendships or fear, her subject matter is the darkest moments of life told with humour and humility.
“I was proud of these short stories in a way I’d never been proud of anything I’d done,” she said of her first foray into literature aged thirty. “I was an active alcoholic although I didn’t know it,” she said, explaining how her crippling addiction led to a stint in rehab. “Alcohol was the love of my life and having to let go of it was bitterly sorrowful,” she said. And yet, she explained, writing offered her a sense of hope in the darkness. “Making people laugh was just really joyous, I suppose.”
Keyes recovered from her alcoholism, turning her back on law to pursue a career in writing. She told Kearney of how her mental health took a turn for the worst in 2009 when she became depressed. “Very suddenly I started to unravel,” she said, “it just came out of the blue.” At the time, Keyes wrote to her fans to explain that her normal newsletter would not be running due to her illness. She spoke of how her announcement made the Irish News and of how her honesty was deemed brave in a society that, at the time, was not accustomed to talking about mental health.
Despite the darkness that has punctuated her personal life, hers is a literature that is often categorised as light, female comedy. “Well-meaning types have taken me to one side and said, ‘if you just knock off the humour, you’ll be taken seriously’,” she said. She expressed annoyance at never having been shortlisted for the Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, a prize that has only ever been won by a woman twice. “Say what you like about me but my books are funny,” she said, “what more can I do to qualify?”
In light of the recent referendum in Ireland, Kearney touched on Keyes’ role as an activist heroine. “I didn’t set out to be an activist or a poster girl because I was scared,” she said. However, her online social media presence and her fictional stories about abortion meant that Keyes was unintentionally dubbed a political voice. “I just thought, there are times when you’ve got to make a stand,” she said. “The next big thing,” she added, “is that we get freedom for the women of Northern Ireland.”
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