The National Gallery of Ireland recently unveiled a new portrait of Marian Keyes, one of the most successful authors in the history of the republic. Seated in an extravagant floral dress against a backdrop of sumptuous golds, she looks like a regal elf as conjured by Gustav Klimt — only with a subtle twitch of irony playing around the mouth. Over the past three decades Marian Keyes has become a publishing phenomenon, having sold 30 million books worldwide.
Credit: Dean Chalkley/Camera Press/Headpress The artist, Margaret Corcoran, has captured Ireland’s funniest writer about to tell us a joke. “I was braced for something quite Francis Bacony because I have an asymmetric face,” Keyes tells me. “But it was so wonderful — and it’s not about me, it’s about the art.
” In person Keyes, 60, is every bit as shimmering as her portrait. She turns up to brunch in layers of bright blue, with hot-pink nails and a green handbag. But she is ever so humble, showering me with compliments.
It’s easy to see how everyone is disarmed by her warmth, but make no mistake: Keyes is a powerhouse. Over the past three decades she has become a publishing phenomenon, having sold 30 million books worldwide. More recently she landed a Netflix deal that will give her much-loved novel Grown Ups an eight-part TV treatment.
And there is her more unofficial role as a spokeswoman for mental health, having talked so vividly about her depression, anxiety and alcohol addiction. But I don’t want .
