I might not have understood everything, but I felt everything, from the body issues to the blow-up chairs to the poorly-attended parties. I vividly remember reading about Luke running the tip of his erection over Rachel’s nipples and thinking, “Ah, yes, sex, I understand, excellent.” I snorted my teenage way through the descriptions of drugs, and even read some Patrick Cavanaugh, Rachel’s preferred poet.

I was 11 when it came out, and I can’t remember ever owning it in hardback, so let’s say I was about 13 years old, in 1990, when I first began the process of committing it to memory. It’s slightly ridiculous for me to talk about Rachel’s Holiday as being part of who I am. They’re a reliable stand-in family whenever my own is feeling particularly far away. A touch of Anna’s woo-woo will see me right. When I haven’t revisited the Walsh family in a while, I feel the lack. I go back to her like I come back home: regularly, to recover, to remember. Keyes has reliably made up the backbone of my literary consumption in any one year: a thriller, a YA, some sort of literary chart-topper, Last Chance Saloon, a failed attempt to read the Women’s Prize shortlist, Anybody Out There, lather, rinse, repeat. Keyes needn’t worry about the royalties though – I’m sure I’ll own at least three copies of Again, Rachel in my lifetime, if the lineup of dog-eared neon Keyes paperbacks in my bookshelf is anything to go by. I couldn’t wait for the book to be released so begged, borrowed and stole my way into a proof copy, which I read in one day, in MIQ, staring out the window at the tumbled Christchurch Cathedral and counting the minutes until I could hug my own personal Mammy Walsh. It’s a place to come when you’re not running away from the world, exactly, you’d just like to bear witness to an alternate version. It’s full of soft Irish aphorisms and in-jokes bad things happen, but happy endings are guaranteed. It comes with a great selection of snacks and some really excellent clothes. It’s a nice cult if you’re not already a member, you should consider joining.

Addicts relapse.Īgain, Rachel is a book written for those of us already inducted to the Cult of Keyes. But then again – if you’re a Keyes fan you’ll have learned long ago to take the bitter with the sweet. This isn’t too cruel a spoiler, since Keyes makes this revelation within the first 50 pages of the book, but it’ll be painful for any fellow long-time re-readers of the original classic. Let’s not delay the inevitable reveal: in Again, Rachel, Luke and Rachel are no longer together. Please read no further if you want to remain completely unspoiled. The start of this review contains a spoiler for a revelation that comes in the initial pages of Again, Rachel. Scarlett Cayford gives thanks for Again, Rachel, a fitting follow-up to Marian Keyes’s phenomenal 1998 novel about addiction, self-deception and recovery.

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