I feared that my father’s death would plunge me back into deep depression
Marian Keyes talks to HANNAH STEPHENSON about how the death of her father gave her writer’s block, and how she’s coped with the grief
MARIAN KEYES’ funny, touching books have entertained us for almost 25 years, as her heroines once in search of love have now grown up and – although often still in search of love – have other problematic fish to fry, with kids, exes, work and other contemporary trials and tribulations.
Always a delight to speak to, Marian, 56, is as effervescent as her writing, with her sparkling humour, generous nature and heartfelt honesty.
Even those who haven’t read her books will delight at her musings on Instagram and Twitter, as she prattles on in her hilarious phonetic Irish brogue about ‘Himself’ (her husband Tony Baines), ‘Old Vumman’ (her mum) and other members of her family.
“I have so much fun on Twitter,” she enthuses. “All I do is waste time. Lots of people follow me who have never read my books, and who are never going to read my books, but they think I’m good fun.”
Her upbeat manner today is a far cry from her well-documented earlier years of alcoholism and the crippling depression which started in 2009 and plagued her for more than four years, during which she sought a plethora of both conventional and alternative therapies. It lifted in 2014 as inexplicably as it arrived.
But it has taken the top Irish writer – whose novels include Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, This Charming Man and The Break – more than two-and-a-half years to complete her latest novel, Grown Ups, because her beloved father Ted died in December 2018 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s, which halted Marian’s creative process for six months.
“It was like getting a dead arm to the brain and I would sit and stare at the computer and try desperately to plan how the story was going to end, but I couldn’t access the feelings I needed in order to write it properly,” she recalls.
How did she cope with the loss? “Quite well. I’m grieving but I’m functioning and I did from the beginning. I was afraid that it might plunge me back into deep depression.
“I’m well now,” Marian continues. “The emotions that I’m feeling are appropriate, they’re grief. I don’t feel different from myself. I’m grieving but I’m still me.
“I’ve had all the symptoms of grief, like sleeplessness or terrible exhaustion or terrible sorrow and the fear that my mother’s going to die. It’s made me very needy around her. I keep making her promise not to [die], which is ridiculous. We laugh about it because we know she has no say in it, but it made me not able to work.”
She doesn’t like to linger on the subject of her depression, for fear that talking about it will spark its return. Nor does she embark on lengthy book tours, which can mess with her head, she says.
The tour for Grown Ups is the biggest she’s done since before 2009. She’s doing a handful of events in February, plus TV and radio, before trips to South Africa and Canada. These days, she knows the warning signs.
“It’ll be OK, but I do worry about pushing myself too hard. I can tell the minute I’m in over my head by the way I feel. I start to feel like I’m in a nightmare, so I’m trying to find a balance.”
Grown Ups is a tale about a glamorous, seemingly happy family – until you scratch the surface to find a plethora of contemporary problems, from overspending and debt, to bulimia, family clashes and complications facing blended families.
Bulimia is not something Marian has suffered with herself, she says.
“This is not my story, but bulimia isn’t spoken about that much. A lot of women of all ages have a really disordered relationship with food and body image. It’s really important to write about that because I think everyone feels ashamed if they do feel like that.”
She says her fictional couples are not her and her husband – although some personality aspects are similar. He handles all the bits of her career that she doesn’t want to do, although they stop short of calling him her manager. They’ve just celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary.
“We were both a bit stunned, looking at each other, thinking, ‘Jesus!’ But if you marry somebody who treats you nicely and with kindness and respect, you probably have a better chance of staying the distance than somebody who you suspect might be playing offside,” Marian reflects.
“But then, other people might find the kind ones really boring. If you’re married for a long time, you live through several marriages. It’s not just one unsteady broken stream of the same. People change and they can change in different directions. Talking to each other about the important stuff now and again helps. We watch telly together, that’s our special time together. That’s our thing.”
Celebrating her anniversary, she posted on Instagram that at one point she thought she’d be alone forever.
“I really did. But in fairness, I was a drinking alcoholic in those days, I was nobody’s catch. I was just lucky that I met him at a time when I thought, ‘I deserve somebody nice’,” she says.
They got together in the earlyNineties, when her alcoholism was at its worst and she ended up in rehab, only to find Tony waiting for her when she got out. They were married a year later. They live in a big house south of Dublin, but never had children.
She’s been writing about the modern woman for nearly 25 years, and agrees the heroines of today are very different to the ones she wrote about at the beginning. Are women still looking for Mr Right?
“I think desire for companionship is incredibly human and we’ll always seek that out, whether it’s with platonic friends or in a romantic relationship.
“The idea of finding ‘The One’ or waiting for ‘The One’ is a very pointless exercise, and one where a person is always going to be disappointed.
“I’m wondering if people are starting to realise that there is no other human being out there who will come and fix all your broken bits and make you feel extremely happy without a break. There’s a more mature discussion about relationships these days,” says Marian. “I still write about love. The humour will never go.
“But I accept more that love does not conquer all.”
■ Grown Ups by Marian Keyes is out now, £20. She is on tour until February 15. See mariankeyes. com/events.
The idea of finding ‘The One’ or waiting for ‘The One’ is a very pointless exercise...