The woman with the recipe for success
Of the many, books which pour in for the purposes of review - how does one decide what will be of interest to readers? Occasionally, the job is made easier. I'm as sure as I can be that nobody could have resisted the biography sent by Marian Keyes, author of the sell out success - Watermelon.
Marian Keyes has a wonderful line in self-deprecating humour, as infectious in her writing as in her speech. Watermelon is her first novel, and Poolbeg were so confident about the book that they printed 10,000 copies - unheard of for a first time novelist. The usual run is between 1,000 and 2,000. The book is now heading for its second print run having been on the shelves for only three weeks, with no advance publicity. Marian got her first glimpse of the finished book, at the same time it went to the bookstores - she saw it first in Dublin airport.
"It was so weird to see my book out there - I couldn't believe that I had really written it. I went into a corner and had a good cry - and then kept walking backwards and forwards past the shop to see the people who were buying it!"
Her life story is the stuff of a novel itself. A 32-year-old recovering alcoholic, who spent the first eight years of her life in Cork, moved to Cavan with her family, subsequently went to Dublin graduating with an honours law degree and from there to London where she now lives. She works in the accounts department of an avant garde architectural college but freely admits to knowing nothing at all about modern architecture. Since her word processor is "an ancient thing which needs to be fed coal" she writes at work by going in two hours earlier than her starting time. The experience of writing Watermelon she describes as exhilarating (it lit out of her...) and she is currently near completion of her second novel Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married. Marriage is a state she will enter herself in December. Of her fianace she will only admit that he thinks she is wonderful. She also says that he is biased and a little afraid of her.
Watermelon tells the story of Claire, whose husband left her the day their first baby was born. Claire abandons London and returns home to the bosom of her rather chaotic family. The errant husband does re-appear, but the reception he receives is not quite as expected. To say more would be to spoil the suspense.
Her writing style is relentlessly observant and extremely witty. Grittier than Maeve Bincy and less formulaic than Patricia Scanlon. Her description of making a pasta meal for her culinary inept mother is an absolute howl.
Right now she is in the second novel syndrome - taking more time in the writing, learning from mistakes she believes she made first time around. Not that the public agree with those sentiments - if the phenomenal response to her book is anything to go by Marian Keyes must be doing something right.
"My mother is from Clare and so maybe one of her ancestors had a little fling with one of the lads from the shipwrecked Spanish Armada, thus giving me my black hair. I have green eyes. Sometimes people tell me that I look like Vivien Leigh. They usually have drink taken or want to borrow money from me. Then they are very sorry that they ever opened their mouths as I spend the rest of the week saying "Oh, fiddle de dee" and hitting them on the arm with my imaginary fan."