I’M LATE for Marian Keyes because the plane was late. Yet when I arrive at her pretty lilac house in Dublin she flings open the door and hugs me. The Irish author talks fast in her extraordinary voice, which sounds like a flute.
She doesn’t mind my lateness at all, she says: she was worried, her mother was worried, would I like a biscuit? Tony Baines, her husband of almost 30 years, looms briefly, handsomely, in a doorway to say hello.
The house is so brightly coloured it feels like a music box. Soon we’re settled on two vast turquoise sofas to discuss her new novel, My Favourite Mistake, which is about Anna, a child-free menopausal woman who rips up her old life for something new.
Marian understands renewal: she recovered from youthful alcoholism and a nervous breakdown in her forties.
This is her 16th novel and she has sold millions of books worldwide. Marian has chronicled the struggles of Irish women for 30 years – but delicately. And so she’s loved. It was recently announced that her bestseller Grown Ups is being adapted as a TV series by Netflix.
Now she’s 60, and I tell her she looks youthful. “Botox and fillers,” she replies with a shriek, raising her chin to show the bruise.
“Take a good look! I don’t want to say, ‘Oh, it’s just from drinking lots of water and staying out of the sun.’ I really wish I
