Anybody Out There?—Reading Guide

ABOUT THE BOOK

For years, fans of Marian Keyes have been treated to the lives, loves, and foibles of the Walsh sisters (and their crazy mammy) in Watermelon, Rachel's Holiday, and Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married. In Anybody Out There?, it's Anna's turn to be in the spotlight...

Life was perfect for Anna Walsh: she had the "best job in the world" as a beauty PR for the top-selling urban brand, Candy Grrrrl; she had a lovely apartment in New York; and had just married the love of her life, Aidan Maddox. But she wakes up one morning in her mammy's living room in Dublin with scars on her face, a banjaxed leg, and completely smashed-up hands—and she can't remember how she's gotten there.

While her mammy plays nursemaid (just like all of her favourite nurses on her soaps), and her sister Helen sits in wet hedges doing her private investigator work for Lucky Star PI, Anna tries to get better and keeps wondering why Aidan won't return her phone calls or emails.

Once a little better and back in Manhattan, still wondering why her husband won't get in touch with her, Anna keeps smelling lilies everywhere she goes. Her sister Rachel seems to be doting on her, her best friend won't stop coming over and taking her out, and Aidan's best friend keeps leaving weepy messages on her machine.

When she finally begins to remember what has happened, she is desperate for one last conversation with Aidan, and begins consulting psychics, mediums, and anyone out there who can promise just one last kiss from her beloved...

Anybody Out There? is Marian's best novel to date. Written in what has become the classic Marian style, marrying the darker parts of life with humour and wit, this novel will touch anyone who's ever lost someone close to them and had to endure the awful process of trying to move on with her life.

MARIAN KEYES Q&A

What's your worst habit?
Worrying.

Have you ever broken the law?
Many times, more so since I learnt to drive—I'm always going through red lights. I also nicked some nail varnish from Woolworth's when I was twelve.

What quality would you most like to have?
More stamina—I'd love to need less sleep.

If you could swap a physical attribute with someone else, what would it be and who would you swap it with?
I'd like to look like Salma Hayek.

What's your greatest fear?
Dogs—I'm terrified of them!

Have you got a party trick?
I tell stories about my disastrous life.

Do you have any nicknames?
Yes. My name is actually Mary-Catherine, but my family calls me Marian—I'm not sure why, but it runs in the family!

Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions?
I don't really—I spent my entire life yearning and wanting everything to be different, but now I don't.

What's in your handbag at the moment?

A lilac umbrella
Wallet
Phone
Sunglasses
Personal organizer
Floppy disk containing my next book
Comb
Sweets
Groovy Chick hankies
Lip gloss
Blusher
Painkillers
Plasters
Hair bobbles
Clips
Purple pens (for doing book signings)

Marian's top five ...

Chocolate bar: Time Out
Shoe shop: The shoe hall in Selfridges
Place: My bed
Restaurant: The Fleet Tandoori in Fleet Street
Designer: Prada for handbags

ALL ABOUT MARIAN KEYES

She was born in the West of Ireland in 1963.
I was a month overdue, and I often wonder what my life would have been like if I'd been born on time. How being a dynamic, sunny Leo, instead of a critical, crap-in-bed Virgo would have been. But we will never know.

She was brought up in Dublin, and then she spent her twenties in London.
When I left school I went to college, got a law degree, then put it to good use by going to London and getting a job as a waitress. Eventually, I upped and got respectable and got a job in an accounts office, where I worked (I use the term oh-so-loosely) for a long, long, long time. I thought I'd be there forever, that I'd end up as a desiccated, bad-tempered, old bag who lived with a one-bar heater and forty cats, that small boys would throw stones at me. What I certainly had no notion of doing was becoming a writer.

She started writing in 1993, and her first book, Watermelon, was published in Ireland in 1995.
I decided to send my short stories off to a publisher. So that they'd take me seriously, I enclosed a letter saying I'd written part of a novel. Which I hadn't. I had no intention of so doing, either. I was much more into the instant gratification of short stories. But they wrote back and said, "Send the novel," and for once in my self-destructive life I didn't shoot myself in the foot. I wrote four chapters of my first novel, Watermelon, in a week and was offered a three-book contract on the strength of it.

Since then, she has become a publishing phenomenon. Nearly three million copies of her first four books have been sold worldwide, and her book Last Chance Saloon was Britain's highest-selling trade paperback of 1999.
In November 1996, I was finally able to give up my day job and become—allegedly, anyway—a full time writer. Except that almost from the moment all my time was free for writing, I began to try to distract myself and do anything but write. I was up and down the stairs, checking to see if the post has come (even after it already had). I'd pray for the phone to ring, make appointments for root canal treatment, and toy with the notion of scrubbing the kitchen floor—anything other than switch on the computer. Of course, once I started it wasn't so bad, I always found.

Her books are an unusual blend of comedy and darkness, and cover subjects like depression and addiction.
Okay, so a book about someone with depression doesn't exactly sound like a laugh a minute, but in my experience the best comedy is rooted in darkness. All five of my books are different but share a common theme of people who are In the Bad Place and who achieve some form of redemption. I've been In the Bad Place myself many a time, which wasn't very pleasant while it was happening but has since come in very handy for writing about.

Her fifth book, Sushi for Beginners, is set in Dublin.
Three years ago, I moved back to Ireland, a move only sanctioned by me after a branch of Boots opened in Dublin. So that I wouldn't miss London too much, I imported an Englishman (well, actually, I married him). I was worried that I'd hate the small-town feel of Dublin, but what I hadn't realized was that while I'd been away it had become Groovyville. It's now nearly impossible to buy "a grand cup of tea" because all that's available are skinny double mocha lattes. Sushi for Beginners is about a fabulous English woman who arrives to edit a women's magazine in the new, improved Dublin. Except she's not impressed. She reckons it's a one-horse town. And the horse is wearing last season's Hilfiger.

She's working on her next novel, which is set in Los Angeles.
I spent a month there earlier this year—well I had to. Research, see? And it's without doubt one of the maddest places I've ever been. No one seems to eat, the gyms open at five in the morning, and even the palm trees are skinny.

Her books are published in thirty-five countries worldwide and have been translated into several languages, such as Hebrew and Japanese. And that's about it!
To sum up, I can't cook and I'm addicted to shoes, handbags, and white magnums. All quite normal, really.

REVIEWS

"A writer who pips Maeve Binchy in Irish bestseller lists, Marian Keyes is chick lit's class act."
—The Independent

"There's no question that she's hot property."
—Heat

"The reigning queen of romantic fiction."
—The Times

"The doyenne of satire."
—Daily Mail

"Marian Keyes is the queen of feel-good fiction...the hottest young female writer in Britain and the voice of a generation."
—Mirror

"Her writing sparkles and the world is a better place for her books."
—Irish Tattler

Let us know how Anybody Out There? has affected you. Post a review at penguin.ca.