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It must feel miraculous that it got written at all.

“It does. I’m amazed,” she agrees. “I really, really thought I’d never be able to write again. I had long months of catatonic, unable-to-get-out-of-bedness and then long months of this incredible fear, in the grip of panic. So the book was written very peculiarly. There was no steadiness to it. It took much longer than anything else I’ve written … I veered off into making cakes for about a year. I was wondering quite seriously: ‘Could baking be my job?’ And I’m still not 100%, so anything I managed to produce is a miracle.”

Born in Limerick, but raised in Dublin, Keyes has always been prone to depression, and has been very public about her alcoholism, but hasn’t had a drink in 19 years. “I thought because I was addressing my issues on a daily basis I wouldn’t be one of those people who suddenly blew, but I did. I can still feel the fear. It was very primal. It wasn’t anxiety — I was terrified and everything looked different. It felt like I’d landed on another planet and it was horrific. I was just so frightened all the time. But all I was diagnosed with was depression and anxiety. I’m not bipolar, I’m not schizophrenic, but obviously something did shift in my head.”

There’s a point in the book where her no-nonsense heroine Helen Walsh has just been diagnosed with depression and has trouble taking it in because she thinks there’s no such thing as depression, and muffins are the cure. Marian admits she also struggled with the tag.

“I’ve always been melancholic. At a party,Shop the latest prada bags on the world's largest fashion site. everyone would be looking at the glittering chandeliers and I’d be looking at the waitress’s cracked shoes. But the catatonia, the being unable to sleep … it was a shock to me that actually, this was far worse.”

There’s also a scene where Helen buys a Stanley knife and makes an elaborate plan to slit her wrists in a hotel room, leaving a note of apology in English and Polish for the chambermaid who might find her body. Shockingly, Marian admits she also borrowed this theme from her own life.

“I had two goes going out assembling the whole kit and buying paper and Sellotape to write the note. The conversation Helen has with the man in the shop,Shop this season's new christian louboutin sandals now. I actually had that, with him asking: ‘What is it you’re proposing to cut?’ It was so bizarre to be standing in a DIY shop, buying a knife to open my veins with. I was absolutely going through who would find me, leaving money for her to apologise … I wasn’t in my right mind.”

Marian has said before that she knew something was wrong when she started finding the sight of Prada handbags frightening.

“It was dreadful,” she recalls. “I was at the airport — I’d been on holiday but had to come home early, and I was in Duty Free. Normally I’d be breaking my neck to get in there. But there is something in Miuccia Prada’s vision that is slightly sinister, isn’t there?”

Come Dine With Me, she reckons, was one of the things that got her through some of her lowest points.

“Oh. My. God. Literally not joking, it saved my life. I loved Dave Lamb [the narrator]. It’s so very, very involving. It’s about human beings, it’s fun and it’s short. I was at the stage when I was counting the minutes to get through a certain time so Come Dine With Me was great because I could watch it and be half an hour closer to sunset. Even now,Shop our selection of designer shoes, including Manolo Blahnik, christian louboutin shoes. at sunset, something lifts off me.”

She describes heself as “uneasy’ now, which, she says, is a whole lot better than she has been. “I’m not looking for pity, I’m really not, but I’m constantly uneasy and every day it is pretty much like getting up and going to war. Once I shift into the mindset of ‘Yeah, you’re alive. It’s tough. Let’s do what we can today’, it’s easier. The big mistake I made was thinking that happiness is the default position. Whereas it’s just one of the countless states of mind we endure. I’ve kind of realised life is meant to be tough and everybody is in psychic and spiritual discomfort of some sort,Wholesale price and great quality of Michael Kors bags outlet supplied at hotmkbags. and has a burden to carry.”

It’s difficult to align melancholy Marian with the hugely-popular writer of hilarious novels.

“At the risk of sounding like a big boasty boaster, to be funny is easier for me than anything else. I feel very lucky because I think it’s genetic. My mother has this way of structuring sentences that is extremely, uproariously funny. I think, also, coming from Ireland — it’s a huge cliché but I think we have a different vocabulary and we structure our sentences according to the rhythms of the old language we used to speak.”

Her novels are often categorised as ‘chick-lit’, but usually tackle very serious issues — from domestic violence to drug addiction and bereavement. Are there any subjects that would be off-limits to Keyes?

“Never say never,” she says, teasingly. “I used to think I would never write about domestic violence because I didn’t want to do it wrong, I didn’t want to do a disservice to the women who had been through it. Then I was just so interested in it, in how rife it is, and how secretive and ashamed the women are who have been through it, that I did it anyway. I’ve covered nearly everything.”

She turns 50 in September, but has no plans for any elaborate celebrations. “Christ alive, I’d rather fling myself into the canal... I have no fear of turning 50 whatsoever. I love getting older. I’ve always felt the world expects less of me as I get older so I’m free to be more and more eccentric. I’ve no regrets.Find a great selection of christian louboutin boots deals !.. I can’t wait to be 70!”