Reading Marian Keyes for the first time: A Confessional
An embarassing case of reading snobbery
For years I have openly said I was a fan of the hugely successful and much adored Marian Keyes. If her name came up in conversation I was always willing to chip in with my positive thoughts on her. I listened to numerous interviews with Marian and always loved her, open and honest nature. I was drawn to her humour and her kindness. I loved her on instagram, especially during the pandemic. I adored the in depth TV documentary with Alan Yentob about her life and books. Witnessing her humility and wonder that such a programme about her could be even vaguely interesting only served to make me more of a ‘fan’.
When ‘Rachel Again’ the follow up to the hugely successful ‘Rachel’s Holiday’ came out last year I loved the many interviews I heard her give about it and the excitement which was apparent as other writers and readers waxed lyrical about this much anticipated novel. I was definitely going to read it…..some time.
This year her latest novel ‘My Favourite Mistake’ was released. As usual I listened to her being interviewed about it in various places whilst she brushed aside the adoration and compliments that so rightly came her way from interviewers and listeners. Like a true fan, I applauded her candidness and willingness to be so honest
The only problem with my supposed fandom was that I had never actually read any of Marian Keyes actual books. Not one. Not a single chapter. Barely even a paragraph. I regularly picked up her books in bookshops and libraries. Like a magnet I was inescapably drawn toward them. Pulling ‘Watermelon’ or ‘Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married’ from the shelves flicking through ‘Angels’ or ‘This Charming Man’, but always putting them down again.
So you may well ask why? Why in the name of everything that is good and true about books and reading could I not just read one of her books?
The answer I am ashamed to admit is easy. Reading snobbery.
It really is as simple as that. It was only as I was reading a comment by Jojo Moyes (an author I also love) that I realised that I had fallen foul to the kind of bookish snobbery I claim to deplore.
“She may not get the plaudits on the literary pages that she deserves, but all those who know and love her (and we are a legion) are grateful for her writing and for her general existence” - Jojo Moyes
Despite wholeheartedly believe reading should be for everyone and there is a book for everyone and it doesn’t matter what that book is, I had foolishly and blindly decided, the type of books Marian wrote were not the type of books I read. I was dismissing her books in the most ignorant of ways.
Thank you Jojo Moyes, finally the scales had fallen from my eyes. In a second hand bookshop a week before I was going on holiday I saw the celebratory hot pink cover of ‘Rachel’s holiday’. Her much lauded and loved novel that everyone had read 25 years ago and many had read multiple times since. The time was now. I was ready. Rachel’s Holiday was coming on holiday with me.
In a small blue and white campervan in the Outer Hebrides with the wind and rain howling around me I devoured my first Marian Keyes. I read it quickly and in long chunks, always wanting just one more chapter. Like everyone who has gone before me I rooted for Rachel. I was exasperated by her, but I loved her. I was frustrated by her but she made me laugh out loud. Ultimately I wanted her to see how utterly brilliant she could be.
I already knew that Marian had great insight into the human condition from all the interviews I had watched and listened to. In reading Rachel’s Holiday I could see through her words and her story telling just how much she understands the foibles and failings of man and woman kind. She writes all of these with humour and kindness. She shows her characters compassion and understanding and she creates a world on the page filled with humour, kindness and intelligence. But of course everyone reading this already probably already knows that.
At the front of my copy of Rachel’s holiday is a section called ‘ A Celebration of Marian Keyes’. This is filled with paragraphs by celebrated writers such as Emma Freud, David Nicholls, Nina Stibbe, Ann Enwright, John Boyne , Lucy Foley and so many more all professing far more elegantly than I ever could why Marian Keyes is so very good.
It seems I was a fan of Marian, but I wasn’t a fan of her books - until now that is. Through a stupidly misguided snobbery I had put her books into a box labelled ‘not quite good enough for me’
I think Pandora Sykes puts it perfectly
“I often think we spend so much time categorizing writing - particularly writing by women - into categories (commercial / domestic/ chic-lit etc.) that we fail to consider each book or each author on their own merit”
Of course the joy of coming to an author late is that you have a whole back catalogue just waiting to be explored.
PS: Giving this post a ♥️ is a lovely thing to do. It makes me smile and in ways I don’t understand helps other people find me!
Loved this! Just picked up my first Marian Keyes book- Again, Rachel!
I am SO seen!!!!!