MARIAN Keyes is a bestselling author of novels that tell bleak tales bound between brightly coloured covers. She says she is prone to bouts of despair and melancholy, yet her books are firmly stamped with a happy-everafter guarantee. She frankly admits to spending a sizeable proportion of her earnings on designer shoes and handbags, yet wishes she were the earthy type who could sell up, donate the proceeds to charity and muck through life with only a pair of Doc Marten boots and the shirt on her back.

As we sit side by side on the biggest and most comfortable lilac couch I have ever had the pleasure to rest upon in her large but cosy lilac house by the sea, I think it would be a great shame if she did sell up and swap her kitten heels for clumpy leather boots.

Keyes is great company. In fact, this interview about her forthcoming book, Further Under the Duvet, is getting in the way of our conversation about shopping and handbags. I want a look inside her wardrobe, but instead I have to make do with her paintings of shoes hanging on the walls and the home-made stiletto-shaped biscuits sent from a friend in the States.

Keyes says she is often depressed by the state of the nation, yet she is a fan of the reality television show Big Brother. I find it hard to square the two; surely watching this human zoo would send even the sunniest disposition into a black pit of despair. I suggest that Big Brother is nothing more than a money-making vehicle for television producers and a baying media who perpetuate the exploitation of these vulnerable souls for their own gains.

She's not buying it, but instead of sweeping my assessment aside she politely gives it some thought before saying frankly, "I despair a lot but I don't despair that much. I think that they are all adults and that they are all media savvy and they know what they are getting themselves into. I save my despair for other things. It's not high enough on my list of priorities to get really depressed about."

I suspect her enthusiasm for the programme is not entirely unconnected to the fact Big Brother's Little Brother hosted by Dermot Leary . . . a daily show devoted to discussion and commentary on the comings and goings inside the BB house. I wonder aloud about the future of Belfast girl Orlaith McAllister . . . she declared she intended to use her stint inside the house to launch a career as a glamour model . . . and I suggest that failure might be rather difficult for her to deal with after the months of public exposure.

"So many people have those ambitions anyway, but generally the people are products of a very celebrity-driven tabloid media, and I just think she might get what she wants. And if she does, well and good, and if she doesn't, loads of other people won't either, " she says brightly. "If I was to strip back how I feel to an intellectual basis I would agree with you. I don't engage with that side of it because I am too busy engaging with other things that I care about more. And if that makes me a very frivolous person then I am a very frivolous person.
However, I don't think that I am. This is just one area where I am prepared to switch my intelligence off and just be entertained."

Keyes is definitely not frivolous, despite the sugar-pink dust jackets and her mantle as Ireland's foremost 'chick-lit' author. Yet she often dismisses her own abilities despite her success. Each month she publishes a diary entry on her website. In one of her summer instalments she mentioned, in reference to her just-finished novel, Is There Anybody Out There? , that she "was actually even pleased with it".

She is often quoted as saying she has no interest in literary credentials. But as any of her readers will know she writes fantastic, thoughtprovoking page turners about 21st-century women. And if she or any sceptics require further evidence of her high standing in literary circles, surely the fact that she was the only female Irish author to be invited to last year's prestigious Haye Literary Festival is proof enough.

When I mention this she appears almost surprised that I would take an interest in her career to date and genuinely grateful that her work has been acknowledged.

"Oh my goodness, thank you so much, you really are very kind, " she gushes. "I was delighted to attend the Haye festival. I suppose my books are presented in the way they are because publishers have this idea that women want to be kept cosy, and often this irritates me because my books aren't cosy at all!

"I feel that I am a product of post-feminism in its worst manifestations. My generation were the first to live with the world after feminism, and we were being told that the war was won and the war was over. I remember being 18 and thinking I could do anything I wanted but then I went into the workplace and discovered that there was no such thing as equality. Women were being led into the worstpaid jobs because there wasn't adequate childcare. And still they were expected to keep house and home together, never mind getting their legs waxed and their nails done! At the same time there was a surge in the number of eating disorders, and women had developed a hugely conflicted attitude towards men.

The terrible shame associated with wanting a relationship with a man yet being made to feel mortified to admit it."

All of this is delivered at breakneck speed Irish Tatlermagazine. She is also a regular contributor to Cara, the in-flight magazine published by Aer Lingus. She says she works so hard now because she is trying to recoup the lost years spent as an alcoholic. "I suppose I have been trying to prove that I am a reliable person that can be counted on, that I am an upstanding member of society."

She says she is less prone to anxiety and worry as she was in the past and that she no longer sees the success of her peers as a failure on her own behalf.

"I used to get really annoyed when I read good reviews of an author who I didn't think was very good at all. Nowadays, I think fair play to them, especially if it's a man. I used to get so annoyed when I saw people like Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons getting lauded because I felt I was doing something quite similar. I mean, after all, they have been heralded and carried through the streets for being men writing about emotions! I don't get angry anymore because I'd rather not be yearning.

I love what I do and I am proud of what of I have written . . . naturally as soon as I say that I feel as though someone is about to stand up and say, 'Wait a minute, it's a bag of shite!'" This seems to be typical Marian Keyes:

acknowledge her own achievements to a degree but always remain on the self-critical side of modesty. At the same time, it isn't hard to imagine her throwing a fit after reading the book-review section in the Sunday papers. She is incredibly hardworking and ambitious but her success is never at the expense of her 'girl-next-door' image. Perhaps this approach keeps her four-inch Jimmy Choo heels firmly on the ground. Or maybe it's to keep all her Big Brother-watching fans on side. Either way, for someone with her talent and imagination, success is entirely justified.

Related Links