When capturing the zeitgeist lets a deeper meaning get away

FICTION: The Break, By Marian Keyes, Penguin, €20

FICTION: The Break, By Marian Keyes, Penguin, €20

Marian Keyes doesn’t need critics to praise her new novel. She’s already a publishing phenomenon; her books have sold 35 million copies around the world, and she is perhaps, more than any other Irish novelist, the natural successor to Maeve Binchy’s throne. Keyes’s books are a sugar-rush; they slip down quickly, but she tackles surprisingly dark topics: depression, relationship break-ups and suicide among them.

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