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Author of the Month Marian Keyes' new tragi-comic novel examines the tribulations of real life in all their light and shade.
THERE ARE ANY number of things for Marian Keyes to be happy about. There's the accidental career as a writer that led to her first book in 1995. Eleven years and 10 million sales later, the Dublin-based author is a publishing phenomenon, one of the most successful Irish authors of all time.
Yet the petite, attractive brunette with the lilting Irish accent has a dark as well as a light side. There's the effervescent Marian, who fizzes like a shaken bottle of champagne about her visit to Australia in March for her new book, Anybody Out There?
"Ooh, I can hardly wait," says Marian, sounding as if she's just won the lottery, "and do you know, I'm going to places I've never been to, such as Hobart and Noosa. Isn't that grand?"
There's Marian's adoration of her "yummy" nephews and nieces, and four godchildren - "my little angels", she calls them; her devotion to her beloved Irish national football team and the World Cup ("It's beaoooooti-ful, it's the best side of patriotism"); and her passion for shoes, clothes, shopping and Maltcsers, although the latter has given way lately to a new diet without sugar, wheat and dairy.
The flip side of Marian, despite a happy marriage and brilliant career, is fragile, riddled with self-doubt and fear.
"Sometimes I dream my husband, Tony, has left me and I have this terrible feeling of being alone," she confesses. "God almighty, he's not the kind to give me any worries. It's about me, not him. And I've been to see counsellors and they just say that 1 have this deep well of pain that tortures me from time to time." Like its creator, Anybodv Out There? has its themes of heartbreak, loneliness and depression, and lighter ones involving the funny, mad, disaster-prone Walsh clan. The book's heroine, Anna Walsh, is struggling with life - until around the same age that the author sorted herself out. "Anna was 29,1 was 30, so we grew up around the same age, although we had different kinds of wastelands," says Marian. "Mine was a shrinking life mired in alcoholism."
Both Anna and Marian love make-up. In real life, Marian writes a beauty column for Irish Tatler. Anna is a PR for cosmetic companies. "Make-up's fun, an opportunity to tinker with our identity," says Marian. "However, another part of me is sad about the amount of pressure that's put on women to look good.
"It's like Saint Augustine saying, 'Remove me from temptation, but not just yet.' "
- CAROL GEORGE