Marian Keyes was born on 10 September 1963 in Limerick. She went to Dublin University gaining a law degree before moving to London. She suffered from depression and developed alcoholism, which eventually culminated in a suicide attempt.
She was admitted to the Rutland Centre in Dublin and she began to write short stories as part of her way of coping with her illness. Eventually she began to write full-length novels, her first to be published being Watermelon. Marian still suffers from depression and at the beginning of 2010 she was again struck down with one of her worst experiences of this terrible illness.
Marian lives in Dun Laoghaire with her husband Tony Baines and has published 12 novels and 3 non-fiction books. Many of her books revolve round domestic violence, drug abuse and mental illnesses, although they do have a lighter side to them as well and parts of the stories are obviously taken from some of her own experiences.
A number of Marian’s ‘chic-lit’ novels have been made into TV series and Rachel’s Holiday is being made into a film. She has been on various TV shows as a guest, including Loose Women and Strictly Takes Two.
Watermelon
At 29, fun-loving, good-natured Claire has everything she ever wanted: a husband she adores, a great apartment, a good job. Then, on the day she gives birth to her first baby, James visits her in the recovery room to inform her that he’s leaving her. Claire is left with a beautiful newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a body that she can hardly bear to look at in the mirror. In the absence of any better offers, Claire decides to go home to her family in Dublin, to her gorgeous man-eating sister Helen, her soap-watching mother and her bewildered father. There, sheltered by the love of an albeit quirky family, she gets better. A lot better. In fact, so much better that when James slithers back into her life, he’s in for a bit of a surprise.
Sushi for Beginners
A nervous breakdown seems like a great idea: all that lying in bed and watching daytime TV, but who’s going to have it? Will it be housewife Clodagh, who spends her days microwaving pasta for her demanding toddlers and waiting for her beautiful husband Dylan to come home, or Lisa, hard, brittle and shiny as an M&M, reeling from the shock of a demotion from her fabulous job in London to a one-horse magazine in Dublin, or Ashling, so normal she’s weird?
Anybody out There?
Anna Walsh is officially a wreck. Physically broken and emotionally shattered, she lies on her parents’ Dublin sofa with only one thing on her mind: getting back to New York, her apartment and above all, it means her husband, Aidan. But nothing in Anna’s life is that simple. Not only is her return to Manhattan complicated by her physical and emotional scars, but Aidan seems to have vanished. Is it time for Anna to move on? Is it even possible to?