Which is something I should have done when I was an irresponsible student. But I was too busy getting work experience in my Summer holidays then, so my irresponsibility just had to wait until I was good and ready for it. For all my talk of independence, I was actually a very romantic person at heart. And for all my talk of rebellion, I was as middle-class as you could get. Wins the Irish popular fiction book award for This Charming Man; in 2016 wins popular non-fiction book of the year for her memoir Making It Up As I Go Along. In 2021, she is named author of the year.

EXCERPT: I'd always lived a fairly blameless life. Up until the day I left my husband and then ran away to Hollywood, I'd hardly ever put a foot wrong. Not one that many people knew about, anyway. So when, out of the blue, everything just disintegrated like wet paper, I couldn't shake a wormy suspicion that this was long overdue. All that clean living simply isn't natural. ABOUT THIS BOOK: Claire has everything she ever wanted: a husband she adores, a great apartment, a good job. Then, on the day she gives birth to their first baby, James informs her that he's leaving her. Claire is left with a newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a postpartum body that she can hardly bear to look at. More than once I’d be serving (and I use the word in its loosest possible term) some table of people (and I also use that word in its loosest possible term) when one of the other waitresses would elbow me (sending scalding barbecue sauce into the unfortunate groin of a customer) and hiss something like, ‘Isn’t that guy that you’re serving whatshisname out of that band?’ On the day she gives birth to her first child, Claire Walsh's husband James tells her he's been having an affair and now's the right time to leave her. * from the publisher's description *Because I could raise the stakes in any conversation on the modem American novel. I’ll see your Hunter S Thompson and I’ll raise you a Jay Mclnerney. Osman wrote The Thursday Murder Club in secret over 18 months when he had a gap in his filming schedule. He writes for no more than two hours, aiming for 1,000 words a day, except when he’s on set. “I can’t be TV head then book head.” Once he had 10,000 words it was easier to carry on than give up. “It’s like going to the gym. If you go for an hour every day for a year then you’ll be fit. If you write 1,000 words a day for 90 days then you’ve got yourself a 90,000 word book.” BBC One - imagine..., 2022, Marian Keyes: My (not so) Perfect Life, Meeting 'Mr Right' ". BBC . Retrieved 8 February 2022. Yes, Claire gets annoying at times. Don't we all? And aren't most poeple who go through big breakups kind of selfish and self-centered? The fact is, Claire is a very real person. She has her flaws and faults, but the reader grows to care about her.

Marian Keyes has a way of writing about life's hard stuff well; she has her own addiction issues and the issues of her fictionalised characters are real in this way. Claire tries to find solace in the bottle, not while taking over the entire story, but we see her trying to deal with life in ways that aren't helping her. Now, I should tell you here that there were no car chases in any of the books we were talking about. They were serious profound books about life and death and similar matters. And it’s all such a disaster. I don’t even know what to call my little girl. James and I had discussed some names – or, in retrospect, I had discussed them and he had pretended to listen – but we hadn’t decided on anything definite. And I seem to have lost the ability to make decisions on my own. Pathetic, I know but that’s marriage for you. Bang goes your sense of personal autonomy! I’m ashamed to tell you that I was walking on air. And I’m even sorrier to have to tell you that I felt like I’d known him all my life. And I’m going to compound things by telling you that I felt that no one understood me the way that he did. And as I’ve lost all credibility with you I might as well tell you that I didn’t think it was possible to be this happy. But I won’t push it by telling you that he made me feel safe, sexy, smart and sweet. (And sorry about this, but I really must tell you that I felt that I had met my missing other half and now I was whole, and I promise that I’ll leave it at that.) (Except perhaps to mention that he was a right laugh and great in bed. Now I mean it, that’s all, positively all.)

Publication Order of Anthologies

On the day she gives birth to her first child, Claire's husband James tells her he's been having an affair, and that now's the right time to leave her.

THE AUTHOR: Marian Keyes (born 10 September 1963) is an Irish novelist and non-fiction writer, best known for her work in women's literature. She is an Irish Book Awards winner. Over 22 million copies of her novels have been sold worldwide and her books have been translated into 32 languages. She became known worldwide for Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, and This Charming Man, with themes including domestic violence and alcoholism. And managed to secure another position with more regular hours. So our romance proceeded on a more traditional timetable. Yes,’ I managed to reply, feeling slightly nauseous with lust. “The car chases are good, aren’t they?’ he said.The table of four men started. I had spoken to them!I had treated them almost as if they were human!