Fiction: The popularity of programmes such as RTÉ's The Ex Files and the glut of self-help tutorials aimed at single women indicate that former Fair City actor Claudia Carroll's third novel might be the one to really get her noticed.
The US rights have been sold to HarperCollins in New York, where the title alone will probably be enough to send it flying off the shelves. The publisher obviously thinks so, having presumptuously smacked "Her New Bestseller" on the cover and been proved right: the novel is already in the Irish charts.
Regarding the rather clunky title, it turns out that Remind Me Again Why I Need A Man was an expression Carroll used as a single woman on the conclusion of yet another disastrous date with yet another Mr Wrong.
The premise of the book is even more excruciating than your average date from hell. Single Dublin woman Amelia Lockwood has a successful career as a TV soap producer, a gorgeous flat and a supportive group of friends but what she really wants is a husband. Naturally, there's nothing for it but to sign up for a night course in UCD run by a scary American woman, the beautifully monikered Ira Vandergelder. Ira promises her students that if they track down 10 ex-boyfriends they will learn valuable lessons about where they are going wrong, and thus be married within a year. The novel follows 37-year-old Amelia as she picks through the wreckage of her past love life, an often hilarious journey filled with inevitable humiliation.
The most successful sections of the book are Carroll's spot-on observations about 1980s Dublin nightlife from Blinkers to the Berni Inn to Blazes wine bar. If you were there you'll laugh and cringe in equal measure.
Carroll writes stylishly but she can also write funny, which makes this stand out a bit from some of the less appealing pastel-jacketed dross that is clogging up the shelves in bookshops at the moment. Like the superb Marian Keyes, the author has an appreciation of whimsy, an ear for dialogue and a nice line in that brand of relentlessly self-deprecating wit that women readers of popular fiction identify with. A mild criticism would be that Carroll's tone here is a little too derivative of the distinctive Keyes to be truly original but the sparkling humour is some compensation.
This is not to be taken too seriously - some of Amelia's exes just sound too woeful to be true - but if you're a woman who can remember when West Coast Cooler was the height of sophistication, you won't go far wrong with this breezy novel.
Remind Me Again Why I Need A Man By Claudia Carroll Bantam Press, 384pp. £10.99
