Irish author Marian Keyes explores a multitude of women’s issues through writing

SINGAPORE – It was through writing that Irish author Marian Keyes, 60, was finally able to express her own tumultuous battle with mental health.

During an intense four-year depressive episode from 2008 to 2012, Keyes’ biggest struggle was with suicidal thoughts. In the same period, she wrote her 13th novel The Mystery Of Mercy Close (2012), featuring Helen Walsh, a female private investigator who also struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts.

Over a Zoom call from her home in Dublin, Ireland, Keyes says: “I did find it therapeutic-ish. I was tired of trying to explain the weirdness of how I felt, and I couldn’t find any other people who felt like I did, though subsequently I have.

“I’ve spent time in a psychiatric hospital and even then, it wasn’t so much the depression that people didn’t get as it was the fear.”

The novel deviated from her usual work in women’s fiction, with a mystery at its heart and diving into darker topics about mental health.

Dressed in a bright pink jumper that stands out against forest green wallpaper, Keyes adds: “I wasn’t well when I wrote that book and I felt like nobody understood how I felt. By writing Helen’s experience, I suppose I was laying it out for myself and I thought it might give other people insight into what it’s like to be that unwell.”

Born in Limerick, Ireland, she graduated from University College Dublin with a law degree and moved to London in 1986 where she worked first as a waitress and later an accounts clerk.

She became an alcoholic during her time in London and suffered severely from clinical depression. A suicide attempt led to rehabilitation time at the Rutland Centre in Dublin in 1995. She has been sober since and moved back to Ireland in 1997 with her husband, former IT consultant Tony Baines.

“It’s the only book I’ve written that has been therapeutic. Everything else has been written from a place of distance. Even when I wrote about addiction a few times, I was on very solid ground when I wrote and was able to have perspective. But I wrote The Mystery Of Mercy Close from the centre of it and that helped me,” Keyes says.

She is no stranger to books with heavier themes, having built a nearly three-decade career on writing about women experiencing everything from midlife crises and single parenthood to grief and regret.

A gentle speaker, her thoughtfulness with words is evident. “When I started writing, I had no masterplan. It started out of the blue and I just wanted to write about women like me. It was during a time of post-feminism when we were all told we should want nothing to do with feminists, because they’re dreadful, and you’ll never get a boyfriend and no man will ever like us.

“I was told that feminism had done its job and the world was equal, women have the same opportunities as men and everything is ours. But I was 30 and living in London and none of those promises had come true for me or any of the women around me.”

Her latest book, My Favourite Mistake, follows Anna Walsh who suddenly realises she does not want her high-flying job, her fancy apartment or her well-meaning partner. Leaving behind her life in New York and a job in beauty public relations, she flees back to Ireland for a job at a fancy new coastal retreat. There, Anna learns that running does not mean escaping her mistakes.

“I had planned to write an entirely different book, a more ambitious opus about seven friends who had been friends since the 1980s and set over 40 years, and two of them made an awful lot of money being terrible,” Keyes says, smiling.

“This was in February 2022, we were just coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic and then Russia invaded Ukraine. I thought ‘I cannot spend two years of my life writing about terrible people’ because that’s about how long it takes me to write a book. I needed a safe space and asked myself what I would read, which at the time was a lot of love stories, so I chose to write a love story.”

Writing about themes of regret and falling in love again, Keyes says: “Maybe because of my age, I want to write about people who are no longer in their 20s or 30s. I wanted to show that we continue to have emotions and yearnings and longings even into your late 40s or 50s and beyond. People can still fall in love then.”

Her novels have been described as revolving around “a strong female character who overcomes numerous obstacles to achieve lasting happiness”.

Of her own idea of lasting happiness, Keyes says: “At the end of the day, we are all alone, and it’s about self-acceptance and forgiving myself for my humanity and many flaws, realising that I haven’t failed by being imperfect. I’m simply having a human experience.

“On a wider scale, lasting happiness is about being grateful for the people and comforts in my life. The ability to notice beauty in the world, to love and be loved, that for me is happiness.”

My Favourite Mistake is available on Amazon (

amzn.to/4bozgln

) and Kinokuniya (

str.sg/CPcb

) for $35.92.