Avid Marian Keyes readers will recall meeting the Walsh family many years ago – Rachel, Claire, Maggie, Anna and Helen. Each of the sisters featured in a stand-alone novel and they are reunited in the latest offering from the prolific pen of Keyes in Again, Rachel.
I recall reading all of the books and loving them at the time – I was therefore rather intrigued to find out how I would experience this latest version of Rachel and her siblings.
In the original story, Rachel’s Holiday, the 27-year-old is on the slippery slope to total melt-down: unemployed, battling with addiction and on the verge of messing up her marriage for good. The dreadful tragedy of the death of their unborn baby sent Rachel over the edge and caused her marriage to Luke to split up. Luke is unable to cope with her addiction and lies and, after their divorce, Rachel returns home to Ireland and Luke continues living in America.
Fast-forward 20 or so years later and we meet an entirely new, improved version of Rachel. She has turned her life around and is counselling at the rehabilitation centre where she was once an inhabitant. She is in a steady, loving relationship with Quinn, enjoying her new-found passion of gardening and her biggest temptation is ordering too many pairs of sneakers on line.
An unexpected invitation to attend the funeral of her ex-mother-in-law sets the cat amongst the pigeons and she wrestles with her decision whether to stay or go. She is unsure about the prospect of coming face to face with her ex-husband Luke and his new partner, all the way from America for the funeral.
She, of course, decides to attend and inevitably meets up with Luke – immediately all the dark memories of the worst time of her life comes flooding back and she is plunged back into the past, reliving the pain and heartache of that time. It eventually transpires that Rachel’s version of the break-up and Luke’s version are two entirely different stories and only once they can talk about it are they able to move on with their lives.
As much as there are emotional, sad scenes in this book, in typical Keyes fashion one is treated to laugh-out-loud situations as well. There is a feeling of balance between heartache and joy evident throughout and this probably sums up Rachel’s life at the moment.
As much as I enjoyed this latest offering by Marian Keyes, I personally felt that the inhabitants of the Cloisters Rehabilitation Centre and their back stories were perhaps unnecessary padding. The almost 600 pages could have been substantially whittled down to half that and it would not have detracted from the main story line at all. Yes, by including the patients and their specific addiction battles it added to demonstrate the sterling work that Rachel was doing as a counsellor but much of it was unnecessary to the actual story. But of course, this is just my opinion.
By the end of this book, I felt that I had met up with an acquaintance from long ago, caught up with her life and am now able to wish her all the very best of luck to carry on with her life – she deserves all the happiness in the world. Go well Rachel Walsh, be happy. - Fiona de Goede
Again, Rachel is published by Penguin: ISBN 978-0-241-44113-8
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