#1 Internationally Bestselling Author! Marian Keyes, MY FAVORITE MISTAKE
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
[0:14]I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company,
[0:19]reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZippyMedia.com or follow
[0:24]me on social at Zippy Owens or join the community at Zippy Readers.
[0:31]Marion Keys is the author of My Favorite Mistake. Marion is the internationally best-selling author
[0:37]of Watermelon Lucy Sullivan is getting married, Rachel's holiday, last-chance saloon,
[0:43]sushi for beginners, angels, the other side of the story, anybody out there, this charming man,
[0:48]the brightest star in the sky, the mystery of mercy close, the woman who stole my life,
[0:53]and the break. Her journalism collected under two titles, making it up as I go along,
[0:58]and under the duvet, deluxe edition, containing the original publications under the duvet and
[1:05]further under the duvet are also available from Penguin UK. Marion lives in Dublin with her husband.
[1:11]Welcome, Marion. Thank you for coming back on Mom's Don't Have Time to read books to discuss
[1:16]my favorite mistake. Thank you for having me back. Oh, it's my pleasure. Okay,
[1:21]tell listeners about your latest book. Okay, it's a sort of a midlife pivot book. It's about a
[1:28]long-term relationship between two people. It's gone on for almost 20 years, and it's been on,
[1:35]you know, they've had a series of almost, they've sort of been in love with each other for most of
[1:39]that time, but never really simultaneously, and then they both got married to other people, and now
[1:46]Anna isn't her late 40s, Joey's in his early 50s, and they finally reconnected, and so
[1:51]it's about, you know, the people fall in love, you know, we don't grow out of it,
[1:56]that falling in love isn't the preserve of 20s, some things are dirty, some things.
[1:59]It's also about the fact that by the time we get to middle age, we have all accumulated,
[2:04]you know, certain amounts of legitimate shame. We've all done things in our youth that,
[2:11]you know, we had the choice to do them now. We wouldn't, you know, when we know better, we do better,
[2:16]and it's about navigating those things. We've done to people we love and to ourselves,
[2:23]and how particularly that impact somebody who knew you when you were younger, and less
[2:29]clued in. So it's about, I think, I mean, in many ways it's about realizing that there's very,
[2:34]very little we can do about the mistakes we've made. We make amends if we can, but many of us,
[2:40]we don't have that opportunity. There are things, things have happened as they happened,
[2:45]and it's about forcing ourselves to forgive ourselves, and remembering that ultimately we are
[2:52]all human beings, there isn't one person alive who has not got at least one of those
[2:58]mortifying events, that they just wish that they could time travel. They just wish they could go
[3:03]back and erase and start afresh, and we can't do that. So it's about, it's a kind of a mature
[3:10]thing to do to kind of say, yeah, I messed up, but I'm living now, you know, I have relationships
[3:17]now, including the relationship with myself. Am I going to kind of shackle myself with shame,
[3:22]or do I just, I don't live well and love well in the now? It's a tiny, tiny little thing
[3:29]about, you know, menopause, perimenopause, it's not a book about menopause, it's a talk, but it
[3:34]acknowledges that, you know, for, you know, maybe 50% of the, of the population,
[3:39]it's something that if we're looking enough to live long enough, it'll happen to us. And it's,
[3:43]again, it's about how, how women are sort of infantilized when it comes to their own health care.
[3:50]We're treated as children and, you know, the boys, no better, the grown-ups, no better,
[3:56]and it's a little bit angry about that. But, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's simply,
[4:01]I tried to reflect as many experiences as I could in, in the book because, you know, we,
[4:07]you know, opinions vary. And I really think that whatever anyone wants in this situation
[4:13]is the right thing for them. It's also a book about family. I have written about these five sisters
[4:20]in the past. They've all had their own starring moment, but it is very much about how they are,
[4:25]they're enmeshed with each other. They, they like to be involved in each other's lives.
[4:31]They love a drama. They love when somebody else has gone through it. They may not be able to provide
[4:37]the right kind of support, but they will be, they will be very, very obsession to be left out.
[4:43]So it's a comedy. It's a love story. It's, it's, in many ways, it's kind of acknowledged as the
[4:49]post-COVID world where like a lot of, a lot of us thought, you know, this is hard.
[4:54]The way I was living was really, really hard. And I would like it to be not so hard when this
[4:59]awful strange time passes because I know so many people who left their jobs and, you know,
[5:05]are toned it down a lot. I think a lot of us are living in different ways or wish we could
[5:11]because hard and all as lockdown was. There were things that personally speaking, I found,
[5:16]I found kind of nice. You know, not having to get dressed, not having to talk to people all the
[5:21]the time. You know, I love people, but I need a huge amount of recovery time when I've been with
[5:27]people. And those, those days when it was just me and my husband, they were kind of hard to get
[5:32]to. But now I look back and I think, yeah, you know, wouldn't mind one of them now and again.
[5:37]So it's kind of a book, a book for our times, I suppose.
[5:42]Wow. That was a great explanation. Thank you for that. The, the plot and the themes and all of it.
[5:48]You know, when you were talking about things that we regret from our past, you know,
[5:54]now everybody's regrets are on social media. At least I feel like the things that happened
[5:59]when I was young, at least they just like disappeared. But now, you know, my kids are,
[6:04]you know, they don't have that luxury. You're right. It's brutal. It's absolutely savage.
[6:09]I mean, there are so many things that I am so grateful that maybe only me and two other people in
[6:14]the whole world know about would you are absolutely right that social media is an
[6:19]on forgiving beast. We can, you know, we could have to find some way to, to manage it or to kind
[6:26]of accept that, yeah, people are making these mistakes in public. But they're also, you know,
[6:31]nobody, you know, nobody can throw a stone. We have all, you know, it's kind of coming back to
[6:38]that thing that like we are all human beings. Nobody has the right to be judgmental unless we are
[6:43]perfect and sadly none of us are. I'm sort of working on, I'm trying to write this
[6:48]book now about this and how really we all need to get back to some level of kindness and that we
[6:53]can't just keep canceling each other. I mean, who said that was okay? Why did that even start
[6:57]happening? I mean, I agree. It's horrible. And it's almost, it's very mid-legious. I think,
[7:06]yeah, there's no kind of room for gray, you know, everything is so black or white, you know,
[7:13]we are all flawed. And we all say things in the moment that is not fully taught through or is not
[7:22]fully articulated. You know, we can't just judge a person on a sentence or we can't judge a person
[7:29]on a headline lifted from an interview. And we are so quick to do that. And you know, I think
[7:35]the people who invent these apps understand that kind of very lizard brain impulse in us to kind
[7:44]of find somebody who was worse than us. You know, it is a very kind of thing. I'm, you know,
[7:49]I have, I have shame. But oh my God, I have just seen the person who has said something far more
[7:53]stupid or far worse or far more hurtful and let's all point the finger at them because
[7:59]while they're jumping on that person, they're not looking at me. And yeah, we have to find a new way
[8:05]of discourse, a public discourse, a personal discourse, and of social media discourse that we
[8:11]need a new language and we need new education to handle this because people say things online
[8:21]that they would never say face to face. And we have to find a way to stop ourselves judging people
[8:27]online that we wouldn't do. If somebody said something really cross to me in real life,
[8:33]you know, once I've got over the shock, I would say, well, did you really mean that? Or
[8:37]was that exactly what you meant to say? Or would you like to kind of elaborate on it?
[8:41]Absolutely. We have to give people room to elaborate before before we, and you know,
[8:48]I'm that thing of canceling. It's, it's not like people decide, yeah, you know,
[8:53]just going to kind of tone down my friendship a little bit with this person. It's so all or
[8:58]nothing that people can't feel out to exist in a quiet or way. You know, that one self needs
[9:05]involve ourselves with the person who upset us. But no, we have to see that we have to kind of
[9:10]preside over their total annihilation. And that is it's not healthy for anyone. And and also we have
[9:19]to look at how we behave that this is not, you know, we have had several millennia of civilization
[9:27]to get to the point where we don't kill people who disagree with us. You know, where we
[9:32]manage to coexist and live peacefully, pleasantly, you know, where we can all exist and coexist
[9:41]in our differences. And we're kind of in danger of throwing that all away. Like
[9:49]the the way we are all suddenly thinking is so primal, yes, and destructive. And you know,
[9:57]the life is hard enough.
[10:00]I totally know. We don't have to be offended by everything. That's another thing. We can just say,
[10:06]okay, I don't like what they said, but it's not going to ruin my day, and I'm not going to get
[10:12]into a kind of a grotesque slang in match with them. Let them do them, and I'll do me,
[10:19]and I'll just live my life, and they can do theirs. Yes, true. All that. Yes,
[10:25]underlying exclamation point. Well, for Joey and Anna, fortunately, they had no social media
[10:33]back then, and so their past sort of resounds of passing by each other in bars, and this and that,
[10:40]and missed opportunities, and fridge moments, and the whole thing can be sort of in the past,
[10:46]and recreated here in your book. Tell me about creating this sort of sexual tension, if you will,
[10:54]talk about the backdrop, because I love the whole retreat, high-end boutique retreat situation,
[11:00]and the locals not loving that, because there is that whole sort of bougie movement,
[11:05]gentrification in different places. Tell me about some of those themes as well.
[11:09]Oh, I loved writing this book so much. First of all, it's second beautiful place. It's
[11:14]set in a smaller town on the west coast of Ireland in Conemora. I'm obsessed with rich people.
[11:24]I love reading about them. I love imagining what their lives are. I love thinking about
[11:29]how they go on holidays. I love how they sort of now have started to issue anything overly glamorous,
[11:37]the whole quiet looks reaping. So yeah, in my head I created this retreat where there
[11:42]isn't a swimming pool. They go swimming in the cold ocean instead. There isn't a gym instead.
[11:47]They go marching off in the Irish rain up the side of a hill, but at the same time it is immensely
[11:53]curated and very hands-on. All the luxury comes from the personal attention, I think.
[11:59]But yeah, the idea of creating this luxury retreat on the edge of a small town. It can create,
[12:08]well, obviously a lot of excitement, because it means work or whatever. But there are other elements
[12:14]of play and so the idea of kind of whipping the locals up into a frenzy of suspicion and resentment
[12:20]interested me because of, again, how people are manipulated. And so yes, Anna does her post COVID
[12:28]pivot, leaves her very fabulous, incredibly stressful job in New York and in beauty pure,
[12:35]and comes back to do kind of troubleshooting between the luxury resort and the locals who have been
[12:42]obsessed and she comes into contact with Joey. And it was really important for me that these two
[12:50]characters were not 19 or 27 or 34, that they were, you know, kind of, if their children knew
[12:59]about it, they go, ooh. And like, as I've got older, you know, and the people who surround me,
[13:05]I see that like our ability, our capacity to fall in love or to get crushes on people or to fancy
[13:11]people or to just kind of enjoy a little flirtation with somebody. It doesn't stop. You know, I thought
[13:16]that like, I don't know, I would get 39 and it would just suddenly, you know, donzo, kapot,
[13:22]nothing, dead from the neck down, no interest and that sort of thing at all. But that is not the case
[13:28]and shocker, you know, people do continue to have sex after the, you know, after one of those ages.
[13:35]And I suppose I also wanted to push back slightly against this myth that like women don't actually
[13:42]ever enjoy sex. Sex is only something they do when they want to get their grass cush or when
[13:47]they want to get like shelves put up. Like that it's a bargaining chip, you know, I mean, it's,
[13:52]you know, men kind of say it a lot like they won't know women don't enjoy sex, but like, yeah,
[13:56]she'll push out if she needs something. That again, everyone's experience is unique,
[14:01]but I know plenty of women who, who do enjoy it and who do enjoy the whole, it doesn't have to
[14:09]be the full affair or infidelity, but the idea of a flirtation kind of make the week go quicker.
[14:18]You know, if you're in an office and there's somebody and you like to look at them and
[14:21]you know, there's a little bit of eye contact and smiling as you look nice, you know,
[14:25]whatever you're looking well, have you had a good night's sleep, whatever. It's just what's the harm?
[14:30]Go to a Michael to be canceled for saying that now.
[14:33]There's something, there's something you want to tell us.
[14:37]You are not going to get it though, but you know what I mean, it's something people are like,
[14:40]no, you can't have flirtation in the workplace because it's, I mean, maybe not. You know, I know people,
[14:45]you know, vulnerable people have to be protected and from the abuse of power of other people.
[14:52]I'm just saying that there is no harm with having an occasional twinkle, you know, it makes me smile.
[14:58]Yes. Tell me how you came up with. So the reason why Anna is back and trying to help out
[15:04]this family is their daughter has is very sick. And tell me about that because of course,
[15:10]there's nothing more terrifying than the idea of a sick child than like just even reading.
[15:16]Not that that, you know, tell me about that.
[15:18]Yeah, no, I understand. I mean, I don't have children and which was a great sorrow of mine,
[15:23]but I have seven nieces and nephews and I'm really, really close to them. And it is that terror
[15:30]of, I mean, even small things, you know, when I, when they were younger and I used to get
[15:36]the car under in their car seats and everything, like the absolute terror that something would
[15:41]happen to them while I was driving them. It just, they are so precious. It's a love like no other,
[15:47]I think. It's so powerful. And the idea of them being hurt and me not being able to protect them
[15:58]or to ease it or make it stop is so enormous. And so like that was, it was painful to write,
[16:05]but it was also, I mean, I felt it and I meant just like bridges and columnar the parents and
[16:13]like bridges has become this sort of tiger, you know, to protect her daughter, Queenie.
[16:19]But the husband column has gone into like a profound depression and is utterly incapable.
[16:25]Like that's how it's affected him. I can, you know, as I say, I don't have children. I can't
[16:29]imagine how much worse it is when you're an actual parent to have a child to get sick.
[16:35]There isn't a terror. There isn't a word large enough to describe that howl of,
[16:44]I reject this, I reject this totally. But it was part of, like it had to be part of the story.
[16:51]There had to be, yeah, there had to be a part of the college and inciting incident.
[16:56]And that was the inciting incident and it had to be something bad enough to make everything else,
[17:03]to kick off the kind of the rest of the book. I hope it didn't upset you.
[17:09]No, no, I just mean you can relate, you know, you feel that image of column on the back porch
[17:16]through his head and his hands. I mean, it's powerful stuff, you know, but then you of course
[17:21]have the love. I mean, there's so many different dimensions of the book, which of course
[17:25]is what makes books great, right? You feel all the feelings. You feel the terror of this and then
[17:30]you move on to the joy of that and you know, how do you solve this problem? And oh my gosh.
[17:35]And right, that's what that's what makes reading so so much. Yes, it's so effective.
[17:40]Yeah, you get the full gammas. Yeah, I mean, you know, I write love stories, but this is more
[17:46]than just that sort of love story. It's not just a kind of romantic love story. It's about
[17:50]the love of children and about the love of family and but the love of neighbors and
[17:55]people who are kind to in the supermarket. I mean, I wanted me to write a hopeful book and a
[18:00]book that kind of made us feel. I don't hope for love to believe in love and to believe in
[18:06]our capacity for kindness and goodness rather than anything else. Yeah. Because when I started writing
[18:13]this book, I had we were just coming out of COVID, you know, yeah, it was early 22 and then
[18:19]Russia invaded Ukraine and it was like, oh no, I need I need to be. I need to write
[18:27]in about a beautiful place by people being, you know, ultimately decent and good and kind to
[18:32]each other. And that's I really hope that that's the feeling that people will take away from
[18:37]having read it that's like, you know, most of us are good and trying our best. Yeah. And yeah,
[18:44]will be will be decent. And you, I know you mentioned a minute ago that not having children was
[18:51]a great sorrow of yours. Can you talk about that anymore? You don't have to. Oh, I mean, it's like
[18:57]even now, my husband and I will talk about what it would have been like. You know, and we were so
[19:05]naive. Like we decided like we would we wanted six. I mean, obviously, you know, anyone who
[19:11]decides they want to have six and then they have two, you know, they decided that that's enough.
[19:16]That's perfectly fine. Well, you know, we're just about coping here, but I come from a family of five
[19:22]and I love the dynamics of a big noisy, messy family. And so we just kind of assumed it would be part
[19:29]of our of our journey and and we it didn't happen and we tried various things and we got to the point
[19:37]of IVF and both of us decided separately then together that this and this is this was just for us.
[19:45]This is just our story. We decided that we had already been given so much by the universe like
[19:52]I mean that we had found each other and that I had been I'd been able to I because I'm an alcoholic
[19:58]and recovery and you know, so I've I'm
[20:00]over 30 years sober, but that I had been relieved of the compulsion to drink. And so that we had
[20:07]a happy sober, mature relationship. And then I had my job and that he was able to work with me.
[20:14]We already felt that we had been given so much. And my feeling was that I was afraid of
[20:20]tempting faith, that like, you know, I would sort of call the attention of the gods to me and they
[20:25]oh, you are right then. Yeah, I've been meaning to get back to you. And he's not like me. He
[20:30]wasn't brought up in almost theocracy as Ireland was at the time. But he's still felt that kind of
[20:37]thing of, okay, let's see if we can live a different, you know, a different life. And we have managed
[20:43]to live a different and happy life. And there is still that kind of lash of the ghost children,
[20:51]the children that didn't come. And I write about children a lot, like I write about families a lot.
[20:57]I write about families with kind of interesting opinionated kids. And I think that's definitely
[21:04]me working at Ireland. And he is very also very close to my nieces and nephews. I mean, you know,
[21:11]like we spend a lot of time, we get a lot with so much fun with them. And then the older ones
[21:16]kind of treat us as the people they will ask for advice, who aren't their parents, you know,
[21:21]that they can kind of come to us with stuff that they might be a little bit uncomfortable about
[21:26]bringing to their own parents. You know, so we feel fulfilled and that way, but like we we
[21:32]acknowledge that our lives are different. And I suppose we try and look at the positives,
[21:40]you know, that we survived that vacuum, that loss. And that we have remained companions,
[21:48]good friends to each other. And yeah, we've been in awe for each other, I suppose. I'm almost kind
[21:54]of afraid of saying things like that in case somebody I'd be smited, you know, the god of the
[21:58]smog women will, but like, you know, basically you do what you can with what you're given. And
[22:06]we kind of had a lot of disappointments by the time we considered IVF. And I didn't think
[22:11]it would be helpful for us to kind of court anymore. But I do know people who have done IVF and who
[22:20]have had children, you know, so like it's I'm only offering my story. And I would never judge,
[22:26]like whatever anyone has to do, because I've seen people like being gripped with that. I know I
[22:32]am going to go keep going till I run out of road. You know, and I mean, me and him, we stepped
[22:38]off the path. And that was just what was appropriate for us at the time. And like anyone who's
[22:43]gone through with my God, I wish you I wish you every comfort and joy and happiness. And I feel
[22:50]you know, we talked earlier, but the worry of a sick child, but that hunger for a child of your own,
[22:56]it's again, it's primal. You know what? I kind of think, well, obviously it's primal. It's you
[23:04]how we're still here. But no, I'm okay now most of the time I'm like really okay. And he's okay. And
[23:12]and I think we very much made the decision to kind of let's be grateful for what we have rather
[23:18]than what we haven't. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. It's not at all. It's also great to hear
[23:26]and I feel like there are a lot more stories that come out now about the decision to do IVF and
[23:31]far fewer about not doing it, deciding to stop. And so I think it's great that you can share that
[23:36]openly and and help people. Yeah. I'm glad. I mean, I never had any boundaries and it was it's
[23:43]both a good thing and a bad thing. But I mean, I suppose the idea of kind of talking about things that
[23:48]would be regarded as taboo. It's not always a good thing to keep silent. You know, there's something
[23:53]so comforting I find about realizing that another person has been too exactly what I've been
[23:58]through or is going through and that they're okay. You know, it's kind of shared. I was along
[24:04]further along the path and I'm fine now. Yes. Even Anna's breakup and feeling like she would never
[24:10]find her path in life again that what was she doing unemployed and back home and breaking up with the
[24:16]so-so boyfriends and you know, she didn't have to take that path. And yet you found a new path for her
[24:22]and she is able to reinvent and start that next chapter. And I think that's also, you know,
[24:27]a very hopeful message. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think any change. I mean, I really, really just
[24:33]like it intensely. And any change is uncomfortable because yeah, we're breaking out of our
[24:38]literal comfort zone. And there is always that terror for me anyway of the path ahead that I cannot
[24:45]see. But the path will build itself. Like sooner or later, we have the opportunity to,
[24:51]you know, forge new connections or find something new to do that we love. I don't mean just for
[24:58]work. I just mean like the past times are passions. You know, for as long as we're alive,
[25:03]I feel we have the capacity to have a good life or a new life or that we at least have the
[25:11]opportunity to try. But there will be times in everyone's life when it kind of all falls away.
[25:17]I mean, it's happened to me several times. But I just think, oh my god, I'm back here at this,
[25:21]at this, in this empty strange, awful, loveless place again. And I don't know if, if there's
[25:28]anything, anything ahead for me. But so far, there always has been. But there will be times when
[25:35]it will feel like we've been annihilated. And all we can do is wait it out and be available to
[25:43]whatever, ever opportunities are people come our way. Yeah, I thought I would grow out of those
[25:49]feelings. And I've since learned that we don't grow out of any feelings. And they can be
[25:54]dialled way down for decades. And then something can happen. And those feelings are up again,
[26:01]there's the fear of abandonment, you know, the fear of being loveless, the fear of being without
[26:08]a purpose or a role, the feeling of, yeah, I was once, I once measured. And now I matter a lot
[26:16]less. And none of them are nice. But you know, we survive. But it's, I think it's really nice to
[26:23]know that, you know, there is nothing unique about these things. And nothing protects us from them,
[26:29]you know, not any kind of age, experience, not, not success, not wealth, not people around us.
[26:36]There would be always times in my life when I am still, I don't know, three years of age and terrified.
[26:43]And that is fine. So long as I remember, you know, that this is not really about them now.
[26:50]It's about the then. My gosh, that was beautiful.
[26:56]Oh, this is like so emotional. This episode. Oh my goodness. Thank you. I mean, it's wisdom,
[27:01]you know, it's wisdom mixed with humor and just such authenticity that is what we all need right
[27:09]now. I mean, forever. But really, I mean, this is it like cutting through all the stuff.
[27:15]So thank you. Yeah. But it's my absolute pleasure. I think this one, the great things about
[27:20]being 60 is kind of thinking, oh, I see all those things that people told me are actually true.
[27:25]Yeah. We don't, we never grow anything and we never get there.
[27:31]The destination will never be reached. They're always just cycling through experiences and
[27:38]feelings and hopefully understanding ourselves and everyone has a big better.
[27:43]Yes, I love that. Marion, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing and being so open. Thank you
[27:47]for this fabulous book that I completely enjoyed, devoured, loved so much. Thank you. And thank
[27:53]you for your time today. An absolute pleasure to be. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
[28:02]Thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review
[28:06]and follow us on social at city Owens and at city readers.