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MARIAN Keyes's new best-seller is a bit of an embarrassment. One glance at the cover and I knew I'd have to hide it under my arm whenever I popped over to the park for a read.
It comes in the classic chicklit overcoat: cutesy blue colouring and hot pink splashes, and the title is done in that silly curly-wurly lettering that appeals irresistibly to the female pysche, at least according to those evil marketing geniuses.
The book kicks off in Dublin. The storyline might have been lifted from any daytime soap. Gemma, a party organiser, is plunged into a crisis when her "Mammy" discovers that her husband of 35 years has run off with a floozie from work.
Gemma is left to pick up the pieces as poor, needy Mammy teeters on the brink of nervous collapse.
Gemma tells her story in a series of emails to a friend and you warm to her sharp, jokey manner as she relates her disastrous home life.
Something about the book began to get to me. Not the bantering Irish charm, not the acutely observed asides, not the cosy, genial familiarity, but something else. It felt real.
After Dublin, we're plunged into the heart of a top London literary agency where Jojo Harvey, a brash New York hustler, is trying to wangle herself a place on the board while conducting a secret affair with the managing partner.
Keyes handles her material with dexterity. The characters are crisp, believable and likeable.
The plot keeps side-stepping this way and that so while you're never certain which way it'll leap, you can't stop reading.
Even the sentimentality is engaging and controlled. By making Jojo a literary agent, Keyes gives herself an opportunity to mock the egotism of superstar authors. But Jojo is more than a vehicle for satire.
Her character revolves around a basic emotional truth. The excitement of her affair is compromised by the pain she knows she is causing her lover's family. The evolving dilemmas are beautifully judged.
This is a wonderful, subtle, hilarious and highly sophisticated novel. Women will scoop it off the shelves.
Men will probably never find out what they're missing. That cover, you see. We have our pride.