What's big and green and slightly annoying? - Watermelon by Marian Keyes

Looking at the scores I tend to give Marian Keyes, one could be forgiven for thinking I didn’t like her books very much. Actually, I do. I like her very much. In times of crisis, when my head is elsewhere and things are (hopefully metaphorically) on fire, I reach for Keyes. Ditto Sophie Kinsella. I have the same problem with The Hunger Games books - I didn’t rate them terribly highly but I’ve read them in hardcopy and audiobook form half-a-dozen times. So, although I must have read this several times over the last few years, I’ve never written a review of it.

Claire Walsh has had an eventful day. Not only has she given birth to her first child, her husband has up and left her for the downstairs neighbour. So, in full Scarlett O’Hara mode, she heads home to Tar- to Dublin, baby in tow. Shenanigans ensue.

Watermelon was Keyes debut, first published in 1995 - the year Bridget Jones’ Diary was first published in the Independent - before chick lit was even a thing. I’m not sure who actually bears the credit for inventing the genre, but there’s probably a good case to be made for this book being one of the first. Some staples of the genre are here: the chatty style, the smexy good times, the young lady getting her fella, but not the shopping, hateful office job and drinking culture which would come with Keye’s second novel.

Keye’s major strength is her writing style (which also extends to her Twitter account.). She’s got this pleasing, humorous intimacy, exactly like your best mate is relating what’s gone on with her recently (presuming your best mate is really good at telling a story). And Keyes is also brilliant at the supporting characters - Helen Walsh is a legend who only gets greater with each Walsh family novel while Mammy Walsh has her title written on her soul.

However, Keye’s writing has certainly got better over the years.

Too often the prose is broken down.

And let me tell you, it’s pretty tiresome.

It makes it look as though the formatting on my kindle has met with a hideous accident.

I’m not a fan.

And then there’s Adam, hunky love interest. The development of his relationship with Claire is … troublesome. Claire, as might be expected for a woman who’s been hit with the “I don’t love you and I’ve already moved my clothes into the new apartment I’m sharing with Nice Denise” bombshell by her husband a few hours after dropping their sprog, finds it difficult to trust Adam. When he takes longer than expected to buy a cup of coffee, she becomes convinced he’s legged it and makes preparations to leave only for him to reappear and begin acting as though she’s spat in that beverage he’s clutching. What an insult! That she could think he’d do that! What kind of terrible person is she, to think something like that about him? It could be lifted straight from a book about a woman in an abusive relationship and made me want to tell him to get in the fucking sea.

More generally things feel convenient in the way of a novel - Claire can’t sleep so she cycles madly for nights and gets her figure back super fast, that sort of thing.

The main flaw is the one I have with all my least favourite Keye’s novels - the heroine has no direction. Claire has this terrible thing happen to her and this is the story of how she copes with it, but she’s not actively doing anything except getting through the days. It’s the same problem I have with Angels, and The Woman Who Stole My Life. Although they’re entertaining enough, they lack the drive (and subsequently the stakes) of her best work: Rachel’s Holiday. Claire has no fail state to avoid.

If you’ve never read Keyes, do yourself a favour and don’t start here, but if you enjoy her it’s worth picking up. It shows the promise of what Keyes would go on to become: a really good writer who is worth reading even at her weakest. And a really good place to go when everything has gone horribly wrong.

3 Stars

Worth a Look - The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes

[This book was provided to me many moons ago by the publisher, Penguin, via the magnificence that is NetGalley. They charged me nothing and for that I thank them.]

I like Marian Keyes a lot. She's often maligned for being Chick Lit which is both unfair and stupid - while you don't have to like Chick Lit, you do have to not write off an entire genre. As I mentioned in my review of Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Keyes pre-dates Sex and The City and Bridget Jones by several years. She didn't single-handedly invent the genre, but she was an important step in its development.

The Woman Who Stole My Life is a pleasing return to form after the rather jarring The Mystery Of Mercy Close (which I'll mention I enjoyed tons more the second time around) and The Brightest Star In The Sky, which left me wanting to throw it (it's decent enough, but a book which turns out to be narrated by the spirit of an unborn baby waiting to find out which lady's womb it's going to settle down into makes me stabby. Full marks for originality and all that, but it's worth mentioning that abortion is illegal in Ireland so I have trouble regarding an unplanned pregnancy with anything other than horror).

Stella Sweeny has returned to Dublin under a cloud following a year in New York as a lauded self-help author. Now broke, she's desperate to get another book out, but that's going to involve laying off the wall of jaffa cakes and actually writing the thing, a task she's finding far more difficult this time around.

Keyes uses the structure which has worked so well in previous novels such as Rachel's Holiday and Anybody Out There?: a first person narrative beginning after the fact, the day-to-day story around which the past unfolds. Stella's story has a terrific concept and Keyes' does great work balancing the distress of the character with the levity of the style. She has so many throwaway moments, so many tiny details of life in there. Her characters are both human and ridiculous - Stella's ex-husband Ryan is the exactly like somebody I know in real life (which made me terribly sad, and a little grateful his kidders are boys).

I like the Irish vernacular - when you read as much as I do, anything which stands out a little is gratefully received. This isn't the full Dub, but there's plenty of 'That's gas,' and 'gameball' floating around, along with the odd nun reference which, as a Protestant Atheist, I find minorly thrilling.

There are problems, the largest of which is the story. Along with the present in which Stella desperately tries to write her new book before she runs out of money, there are two main sections: Stella's time in New York and the events which led to her being there. Both are good, but the ending feels desperately weak. Keyes usually gives us characters who are dealing with something - Helen and her Depression, Rachel and her drug addiction etc - but Stella isn't doing that. She's procrastinating and worrying, sure, but most of what happens in her present is filler - completely appropriate and wildly entertaining, but nevertheless filler. When the full story is finally given, that's pretty much it. I genuinely wondered if my ARC was going to have its final chapter missing because I was down to the last few percent and still dealing with Stella's past.

And while Stella herself is an excellently done character, she's not the best type to have at the heart of a book. She is a passive character - the direction her life takes has little to do with her own decisions or efforts. She is a passenger in her own reality. Keyes knows this and uses it to brilliant effect, but it still leaves for a disappointing reading experience. I understand and sympathise with Stella, but I was never urging her to succeed.

I enjoyed The Woman Who Stole My Life (and I learned something, which is always nice). If you haven't read any Marian Keyes this probably isn't going to turn you onto her, but it's a good book for those who do, if probably not worth the full price of admission. A goodly amount of my like comes from the coverage of Stella's life as an author which - as with The Other Side Of The Story - engaged me. The majority of the book was a solid 3.5 star, but that ending is massively undermining: 3 stars.

Dated but Decent - Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes

As I believe I've mentioned, I have an ARC of Marian Keyes' new book, The Woman Who Stole My Life, but because it's not out until Novemeber, other ARCs are getting read first. In preparation, I decided to reaquaint myself with whatever the Library had of Keyes' older novels: Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married is Keyes' second book, first published in 1995.

Lucy Sullivan is what would later become the typical Chick Lit heroine - 20 something, office job, boyfriend woes; likes drinking, fashion and shoes; her friends (and frenemies) play a large part in the book. It's worth remembering this was published the year before Bridget Jones' Diary and three years before Sex And The City first broadcast.

When Lucy and her colleagues visit a fortune teller, Mrs Nolan, Lucy is told she'll be married within the year. After the others' fortunes appear to come true - Meredia coming into the princely sum of £7.50, and Meghan suffering a massive split ... to her lip - Lucy is ready to believe it, especially when she meets charming, handsome, unreliable Gus.

Everything which came later in the genre would have you believe this is your typical cheesy romance, that Lucy muddles her way through trying to find Mr Right until she finally finds him in an unexpected place, but this is Marian Keyes, and Marian Keyes - like myself - always has one eye on the realm of mental illness and its associated issues. When Lucy sees Mrs Nolan, Mrs Nolan sees somebody with a great darkness in them, and this is a large part of why Lucy - sufferer of Depression since her teens - is convinced Mrs Nolan is the real deal.

Initially, the book is slow. Lucy spends an inordinate amount of time cringing, feeling embarrassed, apologising, feeling worthless, and generally being fairly annoying. She is, in many respects, a doormat. She's also immature: her relationship with her Mammy (which I initially disliked, I will freely admit, because it reminded me so much of Strider's relationship with our Mammy) left me wanting to tell her to grow up and stop being so petulant.

But, at 2/3rds in things take a change and every annoying, petulant utterance Lucy has made in the preceding pages slots neatly into place. She's no longer somebody you wish would grow a backbone and stop putting up with so much crap from so many different quarters - well, she *is* - but somebody who has behaved the way that particular person would behave. Marian Keyes knows her stuff. There may be jokes, and ridiculous characters, but there are still punches and more fidelity than the fluffy pink cover would have you expect.

Although the bones of the story stand up pretty well for its age, the are some major aspects which don't. Lucy's situation, for instance - her flat on her job is a pipe dream these days, as is the ability to sit doing nothing all day without being fired. It suffers what I shall christen 70's Sitcom Syndrome: there are some lines which make for uncomfortable reading in this modern and enlightened age - a male character calls a woman a dyke because she hasn't succumbed to his charms, for instance. Some of the banter between the characters, male and female, is viscous rather than amusing - Lucy's relationship with her flatmates is a great example. Lucy and Gus's interactions - again, Lucy is a doormat and the reason for it is there, but I think the current generation of 20-somethings will have less in common with this character than her contemporaries did, and perhaps have a more difficult time grasping the (unmentioned) fact that Mental Health was talked about even less in those days.

The most damning matter for me was Gus. He is a knobhead. From the second Lucy meets him, he is a knobhead, and because Lucy is such a doormat I would forgive anybody who flung this across the room in irritation and went and found a book about somebody with an ounce of self-respect.

In the end, I did like it, but for a fairly large portion of the book I didn't. The payoff was worth it to me, but if you're under 30 and you don't have an interest in books which deal with Depression and its associated Jazz, there's not a great deal here. Even if you do fulfil those requirements, it remains something of a curio best left for Keyes' fans. Three star books do what I expected them too which this didn't, but in the end did.