80 Books No.45: The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes

Marian Keyes is, as far as I am concerned, the reigning queen of chick lit. I've said before that me and chick lit fell out a while ago, but that I do make exceptions, and Marian is one of my exceptions. I have read every one of her novels, even Sushi for Beginners which was a bit of a chore (although the heroine's parents lived in my hometown - how strange). Her most recent books have been a bit divisive. The Brightest Star in the Sky had such a horrendously saccharine ending that I sort of wanted to burn the book, whilst This Charming Man was criticised by many fans for being overlong (I actually enjoyed it enough to read it twice).

Her Walsh family novels, however, have always been winners. Watermelon, Angels, Rachel's Holiday and Anybody Out There? deal with four of the Walsh sisters and their journeys through (variously), single parenthood, being boring, addiction and bereavement. The skill Keyes has always had is to make the sister she's writing about at the time be your favourite, although secretly Rachel has always been my favourite as Rachel's Holiday is frankly sublime.

And so here is book five, and presumably the last one as we've now run out of Walsh sisters. In this one, the youngest sister, Helen, is dealing with the aftermath of a depressive episode whilst being involved in finding a missing popstar. As you can see, it mingles serious with quite frivolous, albeit not quite as spectacularly as Rachel's Holiday does (just read it, it's immense). Helen was always the sister I was least able to like but here she's grown up a lot and had life experiences of her own, making her a more appealing character. In some ways, she is very different from the character in other novels, though whether this is down to age or the fact she is narrating her own story is open to debate.

What is clear in this novel is that Keyes is writing very firmly from the heart. In Rachel's Holiday she dealt with addiction, something likely informed by her own battle with alcoholism. Here, she deals with depression, something which almost scuppered her ever writing again. It was this element which made The Mystery of Mercy Close stand out for me; the descriptions of depression in it really bring home how terrifying this illness must be and brought it to life for someone who has never experienced it. Whilst the storyline is a bit convoluted and it could do with some editing, this novel is worth a read simply to be immersed in the life of somebody dealing with such an illness.