I have a confession to make. I'm a gom. As defined in the helpful lexicon to Marian Keyes' new non-fiction book, Making It Up As I Go Along (Tales from an eejit who was buying shoes the day Life's Rulebook was issued) a gom is an "eejit. A foolish person." I confess to having been both.
As impressionable as the next gom, when “chick lit” (a phrase I’d love to banish) began to soar in the 1990s, I declared my lack of interest in the genre. Of course, it’s not really a genre but, as I’ve explained, I was an impressionable gom. “Oh, it’s all so commercial,” I wailed, pretentiously. “I’m a feminist: I want to read something of interest to men and women,” I misunderstood, wildly. So for a few years I didn’t properly submit to the joy and genius of Marian Keyes. My late 1990s life – reading and otherwise – was the poorer for it.
It’s hard to make people laugh. Even harder to make them laugh at themselves, but Keyes has been doing this for years.
Knowing first-hand how painful life can be, she makes hers painfully funny for us, thereby making our own more bearable. We are all familiar with her incredibly successful fiction, which is properly laugh-out-loud funny, while still examining the darker corners of humanity. Making It Up As I Go Along is everything you love about her fiction and more; without the filter of character, we get Keyes' own voice speaking directly to us, like a good friend sharing hilarious home truths.
A collection of columns and essays old and new, this is effortlessly crisp, skilled writing. When even the contents list elicits laughs, you know you’re on to a winner. Here we meet the vibrant cast of real-life characters we know from her Twitter feed (the Redzers, Posh Kate, Tom Dunne, Himself), along with the lexicon of Keyesisms: “agin”, “clob”, “banjoed” and, of course, “gom” are all defined in full.
Keyes’ self-deprecating warmth is free to reach new heights (and plumb new depths) when she’s the heroine of her own real-life adventures. And everything is an adventure: semi-permanent eyelashes develop personalities: “They are highly strung, nervy beasts. Basically, you have to avoid touching them at all because they’re easy to upset, and when they’re upset they leave you.”
She says what we're all thinking about Sweden in Bono Boots: "They were by Acne – and what do we know about Acne? Yes! That they are Swedish. And what do we know about Swedishness? Yes! That it is fabulous. Yes! Acne = Swedish = Wallander = Saga from The Bridge = Fabulous!"
A trip to an Italian outlet store becomes an odyssey and long, dark teatime of the soul. Antarctica Diary, one of the longer pieces, makes me think Michael Palin should be quaking in his funny travel-writing boots. "So we arrived into some sort of strike – after all, this is Argentina and this is their way of showing their gratitude for your visit." Or, "We got the most Argentinian-looking of all the passport checkers. FERRY handsome, and frankly so Argentinian-looking he looked like he'd come straight from a polo match and that his horse was crouched down next to him in the booth and assisting him, handing him up the date-stamp and all."
With the shadow of depression rarely far away, there are beautifully frank admissions too: “Extreme places suit me: because I feel edgy or downright scared all of the time, when I find myself in a place that seems other-worldly or freaky, my feelings are appropriate. It’s the one time when my state of mind chimes with my surroundings and I am ‘right’ with the world. ‘Feeling quare? Well you should be!’”
Humour writing can seem easy to dismiss. But, when it’s good, the blood, sweat and tears that go into it come from the same glands as those of the Big Lit lads. Don’t be a gom like I used to be and diminish quality work by calling it “chick lit”. This may come as a surprise to some, but men and women can both read women’s words; they’re often the same words. And when it comes to arranging those words, Keyes is one of the very best.
I leave you with another extract from Antartica Diary: "Obviously you'd think I'd have learnt by now and at least brought enough anti-mad tablets in my hand luggage to last a few days, but no, I haven't learnt, and it makes me wonder if fundamentally I am an optimist when I'd thought all along I was a pessimist, and isn't life one long process of learning about oneself?"
I certainly hope so, and I hope we keep learning and laughing with Keyes for a long time. She’s a national treasure.
Marian Keyes is donating this book's Irish royalties to Save the Children's Syria Crisis Appeal. Tara Flynn's latest book is Giving Out Yards: The Art of Complaint, Irish Style
