We reach for them, like a spouse’s hand, from sun loungers and hospital beds. In fact, there must be a great many, since she’s Ireland’s bestselling living author. I’m sure there are many readers like me, who turn to Keyes when no one else will do. I was exhausted by literature – exasperated with its coolness and impenetrability – and my tattered paperback of The Mystery of Mercy Close (found left behind in a holiday home), my earmarked copy of Angels, and my never-returned library copy of Rachel’s Holiday felt like literature’s last remaining bastions proof that words could still hold me and lift my spirits. Keyes understands the nuanced way that people grow together and apart.Some time ago I went through a spell where I could only read books by Marian Keyes. Jessie hires a male nanny: “It’ll be good for the girls to see a man in a servile position.” The women here are loudly feminist, telling their men they will take care of them, not just emotionally, thank you very much, but financially, too. Marian Keyes: the best-selling author on diets, sexism and being inspired by Gen Z Ordinary life zings with destructive potential. Characters are always at risk of taking a wrong turn. But even without that, the ominous sceptre of life’s pitfalls looms large. We know from the outset that something dreadful is going to split the group because of a prologue where the normally affable Cara gets concussion and the secrets start tumbling out. “Seriously, I get on my own nerves, but I’m not doing it to be sneery.” Marian Keyes tackles everything from bulimia to the decline of capitalism and the Syrian refugee crisis in Grown Ups (Photo: Dean Chalkley) And there is Liam, a former running champ, on to his second, younger – and very woke – wife Nell, whose earnest attempts to save the planet by buying only second-hand clothes and refusing to procreate are, in Keyes’ hands, somehow cute and not in the least annoying.
There is kind Ed, whose wife Cara hates her body and for whom dieting is a Sisyphean battle. There is “maybe-ever-so-slightly slippery Johnny”, the charmer and eldest brother, who is married to Jessie (who used to be married to his late best friend Rory, something he’d like to forget, but which his stepson won’t allow).
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