Marian Keyes

Speaker 40:00

This is the BBC.

Presenter0:03

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:14

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:40

My castaway this week is the writer Marian Keyes, author of a dozen best-selling novels. Her writing's modern and witty and pacey, with a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue and a swinging eye for detail. She creates what's glibly categorized as popular fiction, well given that she has sold over thirty-five million books. That is, strictly speaking, accurate. But the light and breezy marketing surrounding her work doesn't quite tell the full story, but then

Presenter1:09

Paradox has been her long term companion. Born in Limerick, she says she grew up in a big, loving, happy family yet by the time she was thirty she was alcoholic and suicidal.

Presenter1:20

Then, along with her sobriety, came her success. She says, I was born without the rule book. When everyone else was at a briefing on how to deal with life, I must have been off looking at shoes or something. I never felt comfortable in my own skin. So welcome, Marianne Keys. Thank you. I tried there, as I do, to sort of sum up the trajectory of your life. But as a writer, and listening with your writer's ear, and knowing yourself better than I can ever know you, what would you say about yourself?

Marian Keyes1:48

Uh

Presenter1:48

Uh

Marian Keyes1:49

Oh, ah.

Presenter1:49

Mm.

Marian Keyes1:50

Chatty Irishwoman writes chatty Irish books and has been very lucky.

Presenter1:56

That's succinct, but maybe not the whole story. Your books have been published in, I think, 33 languages, which is very interesting to me.

Marian Keyes2:02

Which is very

Presenter2:04

Because as I read them, obviously in English.

Presenter2:07

What is resonant throughout is the the Irish cadences and the toned and and the the very colloquial language that is often employed to undercut a thought or a phrase.

Speaker 12:14

Yeah.

Marian Keyes2:15

It was often a

Speaker 12:15

And then

Presenter2:19

How on earth do you successfully translate that? Whi which languages are you most surprised that they've been popular in?

Marian Keyes2:23

Um, Swedish. With any translation it's a complete lottery. Like, you've no idea if the translations are any good or or what they kinda capture from

Marian Keyes2:33

the colloquialisms and my kind of very Irishly constructed sentences. But then language is like Thai, I have no idea. But maybe the stories that I tell are universal, and that's why people in other countries kind of relate to them.

Presenter2:47

I want you to tell me about your first choice this morning. Tell me about the song and tell me why it's important to you.

Marian Keyes2:53

This is a song by Solange Knowles, who will always be known as Beyoncé's Sister. The song is Cranes in the Sky, but it's from an album that's like a total piece of work. It's a seat at the table, and it's very much a Black Lives Matters album. And it's a very angry album, you know, righteous anger, but I love that she's carrying this very powerful message in kind of an almost below-the-radar way. And this particular song, Cranes in the Sky, is about.

Marian Keyes3:24

Trying to fill that internal hole with all the different things, you know, with alcohol, with relationships, with clothes. It's beautiful and powerful.

Speaker 43:34

I tried to drink it away

Speaker 43:38

I tried to put one in the air

Speaker 43:44

I tried to dance it away

Speaker 43:48

I tried to change it with my hair

Speaker 43:53

I'll wear my credit card below

Speaker 43:58

Thought a new dress would make it better

Presenter4:04

That was Solange Knowles and Cranes in the Sky. Marianne Keyes, you've just finished, I think, writing another book, and you've sort of come out of this.

Speaker 44:09

Good use.

Presenter4:11

I'm guessing it's a kind of self-induced purdah. If you you say it's sort of m mostly wearing pajamas and eating pies.

Marian Keyes4:16

Yeah.

Presenter4:17

Do you feel that you kind of come blinking into the light after the months of doing that?

Marian Keyes4:20

For the months of doing that, yeah, I had three months of like wearing my food, and I'm demob happy. When you finish a

Presenter4:27

But do you always feel like there's another one to come? Do you think, well that's that one done?

Marian Keyes4:30

Well, that's that one done. No, I always think I am spent, I am used up. I feel like it's nuclear winter. I have to kind of go off and live my life a bit. And eventually it's like the daffodils in the spring, like pushing through the frozen ground. Like it it eventually comes back, but it takes a while.

Presenter4:48

What is the sensation that is so familiar to you then when you think, Ah, there it is?

Marian Keyes4:52

It's when I meet somebody and I notice something about them and a sentence starts playing in my head. And most of my characters start like that and I think, right, here we go and it's as small as that.

Presenter5:06

In terms of the subjects that you write about, caring for elderly parents, dealing with depression, domestic violence, I have this suspicion that how you are categorised, you know, in this phrase popular fiction, well, if ever we could damn somebody with a phrase, that might surely be it. Yes, how dare you? Or comedy romance. Oh, yes. Why do you think you're popular?

Speaker 15:21

With the phrase that might surely be it.

Presenter5:27

It's there.

Marian Keyes5:27

Because I'm a woman. And because, for good or for ill, lots of women.

Marian Keyes5:33

enjoy my books and they relate to them and in my own little way I feel that they are quite empowering and I think that anything that empowers women or makes them feel like hello there could I have some equal pay or how about access to the management jobs anything that makes us uppity has to be slapped down and so if we like something by telling us it's rubbish it makes us feel a bit silly for having liked it in the first place and you know I know so many men will be listening to this and saying but that's not true but like it absolutely is true men have more power and more money and do less work than women and money and power and less work they're nice nobody wants to give them up

Presenter6:19

Let's talk for a moment about your own power, because surely as an author who has shifted thirty five million books, you have plenty power within your industry. Do you have a say as to how your work is marketed? Because when you look at it on the shelves, it does have sort of

Presenter6:33

I mean very well designed, but charming, slightly flighty covers and so on.

Marian Keyes6:36

I am very proud of the books I write and the reach that they have. I'm prepared to put up with a pink cover if it makes me more accessible. I don't see anything wrong with being accessible. It would sadden me to write a book that would only be read by seven people. It's that choice. But it means then that I am patronised and categorised as a kind of a not really, not terribly, not terribly clever, my dear.

Presenter7:05

Hmm.

Presenter7:06

Let's have your second piece of music, Marianne Keys. What are we going to hear now?

Marian Keyes7:09

Oh, it's Petula Clark, it's downtown.

Presenter7:11

Why have you chosen this?

Marian Keyes7:12

When I was about three I used to sing it. Are you a good singer? I am a terrible singer, but my mother was really proud that I knew the words to a song and she thought I was really advanced and she still talks about it. So for that reason alone, because it made my mommy proud.

Speaker 17:29

The lights are much brighter there, you can't forget all your troubles.

Speaker 47:34

Forget all your cares, so go downtown. Things will be great when you're downtown. No find a place for sure. Downtown, everything's waiting for you.

Speaker 17:57

Don't hang around and let your problems surround you. There are

Presenter8:01

That was downtown from Petula Clark. Marian Keys, you were born in Ireland in the early 60s, 1963. Yes.

Speaker 48:08

Yeah.

Marian Keyes8:08

Yeah.

Presenter8:08

You were the eldest of five children, and you have said that you would much rather have been the youngest. Why is that?

Marian Keyes8:15

Well

Marian Keyes8:17

I think when you're the oldest you have to kind of break all the barriers. And I was sort of like a proto-parent, so I always worried terribly about everyone in the family, including my parents. And your family?

Presenter8:30

Your family had moved around a lot. That was to do with your dad's job. Can you tell me just a bit more about your parents? Let's start with your mum.

Marian Keyes8:34

Dutch of the

Marian Keyes8:38

My mother is an amazing woman. She should have been a writer herself. She came from extreme rural poverty in County Clare and

Marian Keyes8:48

Moved to the big city of Limerick, where she met my dad, who also came from poverty. She loved her job in Limerick. But when she worked for the civil service, but when she got married, by law, she had to give up her job. Indeed. And that kills me because she was so bright. You know, she should have been working in advertising or something creative. And at the same time, she's a really devout Irish mammy, like a real proper hardcore Catholic. But there's a wild side to her that never really got the chance. And so both your parents, then, these.

Presenter9:23

bright, capable but very poor people came to a city to to sort of make their way. Yes. Was that sense of aspiration very much at the sort of basis of the way they brought their five children up?

Marian Keyes9:27

Balkan

Marian Keyes9:35

I it was a very hopeful time in the sixties. It felt in a way like, you know, things could only ever get better. It felt like a very prosperous, always improving time. But I suppose

Marian Keyes9:49

I mean, all of Ireland was kind of like this, though, that you did not stick your head above the parapet. You know, you didn't.

Marian Keyes9:55

Draw attention to yourself. You didn't speak out of turn. You didn't address.

Marian Keyes10:01

Anything that you found contentious, you were kind of obedient and compliant. I mean, that was very much what I learnt. Did it make you angry? Oh, no, it didn't. It made me scared. I was always frightened of saying the wrong thing, of getting into trouble. And would that be getting into trouble

Presenter10:18

With your parents or the priest or God? Who who are you?

Marian Keyes10:22

Oh, all of them, all of them. I mean, it was an all-seeing, very vengeful God. What were you worrying about? I was worried about being late for school.

Marian Keyes10:30

Like I went through a long phase of sleeping with my night dress over my school uniform just to facilitate a speedier getaway in the morning. And you were a good student. You were a smart student. I was smart and swatty.

Presenter10:41

Let's have some more music, Marianne Keys. Tell me about the third one we're going to hear this morning.

Marian Keyes10:45

It's Message in a Bottle from the Police, which when I was about 16 or 17, they were my group. They are my teenage years. And it was a time when, you know, I was very hopeful that adulthood would make me feel okay about everything. So this is a very hopeful song.

Speaker 411:02

I'll send an SOS to the world I'll send an SOS to the world I hope that someone gets mine

Speaker 411:12

Oh that song all gets my

Speaker 411:16

That's someone

Speaker 411:17

A message in the battle game

Speaker 411:24

Message in a part of the sound

Presenter11:32

That was the police and message in a bottle, you said, Marianne Keys. That was chosen for your sort of 17-year-old self, a song of hope. Which one did you hope might be yours? Oh, Sting. Yes. Sting, absolutely. You've said, I remember at eleven I had a constant feeling of screaming despair. I felt there was an ominous sky nailed two inches from my head.

Marian Keyes11:37

A song of hope.

Marian Keyes11:40

Oh.

Marian Keyes11:53

Yeah.

Presenter11:53

Uh

Presenter11:54

That shocked me when I read it. Yeah.

Marian Keyes11:56

Uh

Presenter11:56

Yes, I think that's quite a shocking thing, at eleven, to feel that.

Marian Keyes11:59

It was about nothing specific. It was just that feeling of kind of appalling dread, but without being able to articulate what I was afraid of. But like it went much earlier than eleven.

Marian Keyes12:11

I mean, I was always afraid. Like like fear and shame are my two core emotions.

Marian Keyes12:17

Always were.

Marian Keyes12:19

I've met other alcoholics and they talk about that same feeling of impending doom and that feeling of being wrong in their life, being not the same as anyone else, not as good as anyone else.

Presenter12:34

I don't w wish to be overly cliched, but there is the wonderful Irish tradition of telling tales and the spoken word and listening to each other and the rhythm of the language. Yeah. That was everywhere in your childhood, wasn't it?

Marian Keyes12:45

Yeah.

Marian Keyes12:46

Yeah, it was and it might be a cliche but it was real for me. So it was all about you know the gifted storyteller and like in the house I grew up in you know storytelling was a competitive sport and I love words. I mean I do have that Irish thing of why use one word when 20 will do. I suppose living in Ireland helps as well. every interaction, even if you're just buying a newspaper, it's a little opportunity for a mini play. I think Irish people really value words and the fun you can have with them, the patterns and the stories, the tapestry you can create with them. And I know that sounds incredibly clichéd, but it's true and it's one of the things I really love about living there.

Presenter13:28

Tell me about your next piece of music, my name Keys. We're on

Marian Keyes13:30

On your fourth of the day. What are we going to hear? This is Ordinary Man by Christy Moore.

Presenter13:30

What do we got?

Marian Keyes13:34

He didn't write it, but it was written during the recession of the eighties. And I I just love him because he's such a champion of those who have it hard. I find it very moving, and he really articulates.

Marian Keyes13:46

how I feel because I've always been left of centre and he he does it so well.

Speaker 413:52

But the owner says he's sad To see the things have got so bad.

Speaker 413:57

But the captains of industry won't let him lose

Speaker 414:03

He still drives a car And smokes a cigar

Speaker 414:09

Until he takes his family on a cruise He'll never lose

Presenter14:22

That was Ordinary Man Sun There by Christy Moore. You said, Marianne Keys, that that was uh written during the eighties for the time of high unemployment. Let's talk about the eighties then, because after you did a law degree, after finishing your law degree

Speaker 114:29

Yeah.

Speaker 114:31

Because of the

Presenter14:35

There were very, very many young Irish people who decided that Ireland held nothing for them, especially a job and a future, and so they left.

Speaker 114:40

Yeah.

Marian Keyes14:40

Actually enjoy.

Presenter14:43

in their tens of thousands, and you were one of those that left. You you came to London.

Marian Keyes14:46

Yeah, I did in 1986 and uh that year fifty thousand Irish people emigrated.

Presenter14:52

I mean, just briefly, why did you choose law and why do you think that you couldn't get a job as a young trainee in a law firm?

Marian Keyes14:57

I did law because I don't know what it's like here, but I got the right number of points to study it. And my

Marian Keyes15:04

Parents were so proud of me.

Presenter15:05

Yeah.

Marian Keyes15:07

But I was immature and I was ill-suited for it. I had that thing of like, nobody will ever pick me, no company will ever want me. I know it sounds awful. The freedom and the anonymity then that came with moving to London. Yes, tell me about that. It was joyous. I lived in a squat on the 21st floor of a tower block in Hackney with my gay friend Connor, and I really felt this is living. You know, I'm breaking so many rules. And I got a job as a waitress in a place called the Video Cafe, which was full of out-of-work actresses and models. And it just felt really exciting. And, you know, I slept all day and worked in the evening, then went out clubbing and went home to my squat.

Presenter15:21

That came with moving to London.

Marian Keyes15:53

You know, I'm in recovery from alcoholism now, but I mean, I drank really heavily around then because

Marian Keyes16:01

There were no real responsibilities.

Presenter16:04

And what was the sign to you yourself, or m maybe actually indeed to those around you and who cared about you, that you were drinking too much?

Marian Keyes16:11

The sign to myself didn't come at all.

Marian Keyes16:14

Because as my addiction got worse, so did my denial. Alcohol was the love of my life. It was my best friend, and in the end, my only friend.

Marian Keyes16:23

But even when I ended up going into rehab, I honestly thought that I was okay, that I was just very depressed, and that this place would be great for me because I was obviously very complicated and needed kind of the finest brains in psychiatry to assess me and to kind of get to the root of my problem. I thought, you know, I was that I was uniquely troubled, but that this place would fix me. When did you first write? About four months before I stopped drinking. Is that interesting to you? Oh, completely. There is a huge connection. At that stage, I had stopped eating.

Marian Keyes17:00

stopped hoping, was constantly suicidal. I mean, there was only kind of one way that it was going to go. Like, I couldn't stop drinking, like, and I couldn't stop. There was no choice in it. And I was kind of preparing

Marian Keyes17:16

To go under.

Speaker 417:17

Right.

Marian Keyes17:17

And one afternoon I was at home and I should have been at work.

Marian Keyes17:22

And I read a short story in a magazine.

Marian Keyes17:25

And something in me said you could do that. And it was like literally.

Marian Keyes17:31

Got a pen and paper and started writing, there and then, and wrote my first short story, that afternoon.

Marian Keyes17:38

And it was, I think.

Marian Keyes17:40

You know that primal urge that's in all of us to stay alive? It was that saying.

Marian Keyes17:46

Here, I can offer you this. Will you live for this? And it didn't get me sober, but it gave me something to hope for. Like, you know, when I came out from rehab, I knew that I could never drink normally again. Like, that was over. There was something else. There was a kind of a rope across the abyss. It was me. It felt truthful, I suppose. It felt authentic and like a proper expression of my deepest, goodest self, I suppose.

Presenter18:16

We're going to stop for some music, Marianne Keynes. I want you to tell me about why you've chosen this next disc. It's your fifth.

Marian Keyes18:20

Yeah, it's We Are Family by Sister Sledge. I grew up with Sister Sledge, but I love my family. Well, I have two sisters, but I have sisters-in-law. I have a niece, I have a mother. I see my family every Friday. We go to my mother's house for a kind of a very chaotic dinner, and there are like often up to 15 of us, and there are babies, and nephews, and teenagers, and old people, and it makes me so happy. I love them.

Speaker 418:47

We are family

Speaker 418:51

I got all my sisters with me.

Speaker 418:55

We are family.

Speaker 419:00

Get up, everybody, and say

Speaker 419:04

We are family.

Speaker 419:08

I got all my sisters with me.

Speaker 419:12

We are fairly

Speaker 419:16

Get up, everybody, and sing!

Presenter19:20

That was Sister Sledge and We Are Family. We had our own middle seventies disco going there, Marianne Keys. Um, returning from London to Ireland, that happened when you were thirty, and it happened because

Speaker 419:24

Yeah.

Marian Keyes19:29

Sorry.

Presenter19:32

You decided to go into rehab or your family decided to go? My family decided for me. Yeah, it was decided for me. Well, obviously that in itself is a very big thing to happen, but also the very act of returning home, of coming from London, that place that you had gone to, coming back home, aged thirty, again, quite a crucial age.

Marian Keyes19:34

Yeah.

Marian Keyes19:46

Dress

Marian Keyes19:49

Well, I mean, I was quite bonkers, you know, going into rehab. Like, I genuinely thought there was nothing wrong with me. It was humiliating, I suppose.

Marian Keyes19:59

And kind of I felt like I hadn't grown up at all. What was the biggest thing that you learned about yourself in rehab? That I'm very selfish, that I'm very immature, or that I was.

Marian Keyes20:11

that I kind of blamed everyone else.

Marian Keyes20:15

for anything bad that happened to me. I learned how to take responsibility.

Marian Keyes20:19

for the consequences of my actions, I think, in there.

Presenter20:21

Yeah.

Marian Keyes20:22

Your novels always feel

Presenter20:23

Feature: Resolution.

Presenter20:26

Things are made fine at the end, whatever terrible things happen in the stories that precede the end.

Speaker 420:28

Yeah, whatever.

Speaker 420:30

In the story.

Presenter20:32

As you went out into the world, sober and in your recovery.

Presenter20:37

What did you hope for?

Presenter20:39

For your story.

Marian Keyes20:40

I hoped to stay sober.

Marian Keyes20:43

And I have. You know, it's been twenty three years and I have never had a drink in that time, which

Marian Keyes20:48

You know, I've done what I was told to do.

Marian Keyes20:51

And it has worked, which is wonderful.

Marian Keyes20:54

I wanted to stay sober and I wanted to write.

Presenter20:57

It seems that that period between recovery and success.

Presenter21:02

As fair is quite a short term.

Marian Keyes21:04

It is. I went into rehab in January of 94 and my first book was published in September 95. It was, it was incredibly fast. So you came out of rehab and just started writing? I did. I did. And I was really proactive because I had kind of failed at an awful lot of things and I'd failed because I'd never done anything. But I decided, I'm actually doing things. I'm going to send my stuff to publishers. And a publisher wrote back and said, we like your stuff. I felt this is kind of what I'm meant to be doing. It was joyous. I mean, it still feels joyous. Like, I've never taken it for granted that this is what I do. Like, I love it.

Presenter21:15

Started writing.

Presenter21:42

You had said that for so long you had felt like somebody who was not at home in their own skin. So then you felt at home, did you?

Marian Keyes21:46

So

Marian Keyes21:49

Yeah, it feels like when I write it's the most authentic thing I do, it's the most authentic way I can be. It felt like I was being honest, and that honesty was being rewarded, I suppose, was how it felt.

Marian Keyes22:02

Let's have some more music, Marianne Keys. Tell me about this. It's the great Amy Winehouse, who I love for so many reasons. Like in a world of sort of manufactured stuff, she was so real. I've picked Tears Dry on Their Own, but it could have been any song from that album. And I picked it because, even though it's a sad song, I have such a happy memory. 2007, I was in my car driving down to Wicklow on a Saturday evening. It was sunny, the song was on my car radio, and I was singing. And I just remember being in my life and in my body and in that moment and just being so, so happy.

Speaker 422:37

I knew I had him at my match But every moment we can snatch I don't know why I got so attached

Speaker 422:45

It's my responsibility You don't own nothing to me But to walk away I have no progress

Speaker 122:47

Uh Yeah.

Speaker 422:53

He walks away, the sun goes down He takes the day, but I'm grown And in your way, in this blue shade My tears dry on their own

Presenter23:09

Tears Dry on Their Own, Amy Winehouse. Uh Marianne Keys, you were a very successful novelist, much loved by your readers, happily married, and in your mid forties when you posted on your websites

Presenter23:23

It wasn't quite a diary, it was more a statement. And you said that you were

Speaker 123:25

Said that you

Presenter23:26

Laid low with crippling depression, and that you begged your fans and the people who read your fiction just to give you time to.

Marian Keyes23:33

Yeah.

Presenter23:34

Somehow, deal with what was an appalling episode in your life. What do you remember of that period?

Marian Keyes23:34

Uh

Marian Keyes23:40

It started quite suddenly. I was at a barbecue one Sunday afternoon, and I started feeling intense anxiety. I couldn't understand it. You know, everything was fine, but everything in me started to speed up, and I started to feel like I was dreaming, like that the people I was talking to weren't real.

Marian Keyes24:03

got worse and worse and I was in the middle of promoting a book and I thought maybe when the promotion ended that the the fear would go away. But it didn't. I had never really experienced anything like it. I stopped being able to sleep. I stopped being able to eat. I couldn't have conversations and it

Marian Keyes24:24

It accelerated like the the speediness got worse and worse, and

Marian Keyes24:29

I ended up going into a psychiatric hospital, but I thought I'd feel safe in there and I felt even less safe. So I came out again, went back in again.

Marian Keyes24:37

Then

Marian Keyes24:38

kind of suicidal impulses started and

Marian Keyes24:42

It was very hard to physically stop myself from going through it, like for months and months every day was an enormous effort to not do.

Marian Keyes24:52

the acts of wounding myself.

Presenter24:55

Yeah. Uh you said that you had impulses to take your life up to forty times in a day at at its worst.

Marian Keyes25:00

That's its worst. Yeah, and that went on for eighteen months.

Presenter25:04

You

Marian Keyes25:04

Uh Perhaps

Presenter25:04

since written about your depression in an an almost unbelievably articulate way.

Presenter25:10

And a way that I think helps the rest of us understand who have not gone through depression what it must be like to go through depression.

Presenter25:17

On reading it I was terrified.

Presenter25:21

At how it must have been to be you.

Presenter25:24

Thank you. How on earth did you manage to get out of it? How on earth? Because you tried it. Goodness knows you tried everything going.

Marian Keyes25:29

Yeah.

Marian Keyes25:30

I tried everything. I mean, I did like, you know, every medication. I tried cognitive behavioural therapy, you know, time, couple of spells in a in a hospital, mindfulness, uh, meditation, even went back to mass for a while with my mother. And I would do anything that people suggested, like eating, you know, alkaline food, like blue food, whatever.

Presenter25:52

You attacked it from every direction.

Marian Keyes25:53

I did, I did, and nothing worked except the passage of time. And I don't know if that will help people, but it ran its course. It's an illness, and it ran its course. Like, I couldn't even read magazines, like, I'd have forgotten the start of the sentence. By the time I got to the end, the words would jump around, you know, which was hard for me because I love books. Unless at the same time, at the height of it.

Presenter26:18

You found you went back and found that you'd completed a cryptic crossword one day.

Marian Keyes26:23

Funnily, yes. You know, it was nothing like I was told it would be like. You know, like I was far more frightened than numb. My brain was far more jumpy than dead. I was very active cognitively, not the opposite. And so it.

Presenter26:42

It healed, the thing healed, and you began slowly to feel better.

Marian Keyes26:44

And you began

Marian Keyes26:46

No, quickly. Quickly. Yeah, I mean.

Marian Keyes26:49

Three years ago, uh the start of twenty fourteen, it was like coming up from the bottom of the ocean and it was really speedy. And how quickly did you start writing again?

Marian Keyes27:00

The funny thing is that I had written in bouts, even through the worst of it, and I'd written a book called The Mystery of Mercy Close, which is about a woman experiencing the exact type of depression that I had experienced. And I wrote that because it helped me. It helped me articulate how very strange it was. I had always described myself as kind of melancholic or depressive. I hadn't a clue. You know, I hadn't a notion. Anything I'd had before was just kind of, you know, a blue day by comparison. This was altered perceptions. It was a mental illness. It wasn't about feeling sad or down or low. Let's have some of the amusement.

Presenter27:37

Dick Marion, what are we going to hear now?

Marian Keyes27:39

Okay, George Michael, who I have loved from the days of Wham and I will love till the day I die, you have been loved. I used to listen to this song at the worst of my times. The mother in this has been bereaved, her son is dead, and she's still trying to find comfort in her faith. And I had no faith religiously, but I had had faith in my loved ones and stuff. And it was that feeling of when nothing works.

Speaker 428:03

Take him, my love, he said.

Speaker 428:11

Don't fail

Speaker 428:12

That God is day.

Speaker 428:18

Take it, my love is it.

Speaker 428:25

You have been loved.

Presenter28:31

George Michael, you have been loved. Uh Marianne Keys, it's been said by great artists indeed that uh art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. I'm wondering what it does for you when you write. How do you feel after you've written?

Marian Keyes28:46

Um honest. Like I've done something worthwhile.

Presenter28:50

Are you sometimes surprised by what you've written when you go back and read it?

Marian Keyes28:53

Often, often. I hope that doesn't sound boasty because I think writing comes from the subconscious. It kind of accesses a part that the conscious brain doesn't really. So, you know, we can throw up nuggets of stuff that we weren't aware we knew, which is always nice. What do your parents say about your work? Do they read it? Well, my dad has Alzheimer's now, so he doesn't. He was proud but also very worried about me. I remember him ringing me to warn me that the new Bridget Jones book was coming out and that, you know, my book might be selling now, but not, you know, wait for another week and it's going to be all over. And like, he wasn't meaning to be mean, it was to prepare me for disappointment. My mother, it's more conflicted because she could have done this and probably a lot better than I do. She also worries, I think, about the capers of my characters. Like, she gives me advice on the sexual acts and says, less of them, please. And she is a little bit worried, I think, about me shaming her. You live back.

Marian Keyes29:54

Yeah.

Presenter29:54

Now and have done for a while. And you said at the beginning that, you know, in the nineteen eighties, the late eighties, you you couldn't wait to get away and now all the things that you hated about your Ireland then are the things you love about it now.

Marian Keyes29:54

No, and how

Marian Keyes30:01

And now all

Marian Keyes30:06

Yes, I mean the fact that nobody can do anything in Ireland without everybody knowing about it. You know, I love feeling part of a community. Like you can go nowhere without meeting somebody you know. You know, I still worry about the theocratic elements. I mean it has lessened but it's it's far from gone. But you know there is a lot of campaigning and advocacy being done around that which I feel

Marian Keyes30:32

Happy to be able to lend my voice to it. It feels like.

Marian Keyes30:36

You know, back in the 80s there was nothing I could do to change anything. Now it feels that there is a chance to influence things.

Presenter30:43

What would you enjoy, if indeed you would enjoy anything, about being cast away to this island, all alone?

Marian Keyes30:49

I'm great on my own.

Marian Keyes30:51

I could go to bed whenever I wanted. I like being in my own head. I could write books in my head. Are you a good cook? I'm not. I'm absolutely not. I'm not. I would starve to death before anybody got to eat me.

Presenter30:57

Pretty good cook.

Presenter31:03

Let's have your final choice then, though.

Marian Keyes31:05

Okay, it's Earth, Wind and Fire. It's September, the song for lots of reasons. I love autumn. The 1st of September is the happiest day of the year for me. And the year 2014, when I started to get well and I was really well really quickly, it was the 31st of August. We were in our sitting room and I realised it was going to be September the next day and I was so happy. So we put on the song and we danced in our living room and I was just so happy. I was back. I was better. Autumn was about to start. It just didn't get any better.

Presenter31:05

Uh

Speaker 431:47

Yeah

Speaker 431:50

While chasing the clouds away

Presenter31:58

That was Earth, Wind and Fire and September. Marianne, I'm going to give you the books now. Every Castaway gets the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, and also gets to take another book along.

Marian Keyes32:02

Uh

Speaker 432:02

Across the

Marian Keyes32:03

Uh

Marian Keyes32:08

Okay?

Presenter32:09

Yeah.

Marian Keyes32:09

Can I take um a book of cryptic crosswords? Because that'll keep me occupied. Okay. How long does it take you typically to do a cryptid word? Oh, I mean I might never finish it. No, but just one crossword? How long? Oh, it could take me a day. Right. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I'd get a good month out of it. You can have a bumper book of crosswords. And what will your luxury be?

Presenter32:24

You can

Presenter32:26

Crosswise.

Marian Keyes32:29

I know this is pathetic. Could I have a photograph of my husband? Because I'm really quite fond of him, and I'd miss him if I was there on my own. You can, that's no point. Cube.

Presenter32:38

Yeah.

Marian Keyes32:38

Uh

Presenter32:38

Uh

Marian Keyes32:39

And of the

Marian Keyes32:41

But you've chosen to date Which is the one that you would like to save? I'm going to save George Michael, because, as I said, I have loved him since Swam. I will love him forever. I want him to be with me on the island.

Presenter32:51

It's yours.

Marian Keyes32:52

Thank you.

Presenter32:53

Marianne Keys, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Marian Keyes32:56

Thank you. It's been a total on Yeah.

Presenter32:58

Uh

Presenter33:43

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website, bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.

Speaker 434:15

This is the BBC.