Good Behaviour, Molly Keane
Good Behaviour, Molly Keane
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Good Behaviour
A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick – Booker Prize Gems

Author: Molly Keane

Narrator: Aoife McMahon

Unabridged: 8 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/24/2021

Synopsis

A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK (BOOKER PRIZE GEMS)

'Molly Keane is a mistress of wicked comedy' VOGUE

'She was . . . marvellous' GUARDIAN

'Dark, complex, engaging . . . a wonderful tour de force' MARIAN KEYES

I do know how to behave - believe me, because I know. I have always known . . .

Behind the gates of Temple Alice, the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires. This elegant and allusive novel established Molly Keane as the natural successor to Jean Rhys.

'I have read and re-read Molly Keane more, I think, than any other writer. Nobody else can touch her as a satirist, tragedian and dissector of human behaviour. I love all her books, but Good Behaviour and Loving and Giving are the ones I return to most' MAGGIE O'FARRELL

About Molly Keane

Molly Keane (1904-1996) was an Irish novelist and playwright. She grew up at Ballyrankin in County Wexford and was educated at a boarding school in Bray, County Wicklow. She married Bobby Keane, one of a Waterford squirearchical family in 1938 and had two daughters. She used her married name for her later novels, several of which (Good Behaviour, Time After Time) have been adapted for television. Between 1928 and 1956, she wrote eleven novels, and some of her earlier plays, under the pseudonym M. J. Farrell. Her husband died suddenly in 1946, and following the failure of a play she published nothing for twenty years. In 1981, Good Behaviour came out under her own name. The novel was warmly received and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Reviews

Goodreads review by JimZ on June 23, 2021

Wow. What did I just read? This book has been around for many years…where was I? Under a rock? The book was shortlisted for the 1981 Booker Prize which was eventually won by Salman Rushdie with “Midnight’s Children”. Others on shortlist were Ian McEwan (The Comfort of Strangers) and Doris Lessing (T......more

Goodreads review by David on December 02, 2008

Another Anglo-Irish family whose members are dedicated to mutual assured destruction, even as they slide into genteel poverty. Nobody in the St Charles household would dream of treating the dogs or horses badly; servants and local tradesmen don't fare so well. But the brunt of their vituperation is......more

Quotes

She was . . . marvellous Guardian

A fine novel, wickedly alive Sunday Times

Molly Keane's Good Behaviour presents a character whose own strict Christian code wreaks havoc on all those around her. Though she herself tells the tale, we somehow see her morality's disastrous consequences. Hilarious and sinister New York Times

I really wish I had written this book. It's a tragi-comedy set in Ireland after the First World War. A real work of craftsmanship, where the heroine is also the narrator, yet has no idea what is going on. You read it with mounting horror and hilarity as you begin to grasp her delusion

I have read and re-read Molly Keane more, I think, than any other writer. Nobody else can touch her as a satirist, tragedian, and dissector of human behaviour. I love all her books, but Good Behaviour and Loving and Giving are the ones I return to most

Keane's distinctive blend of elegant savagery and deep affection . . . its human relationships tortured like bonsai by good form, its open-hearted, sensual passion for horses, dogs and landscape Evening Standard

Molly Keane is a mistress of wicked comedy Vogue

Enchanting Observer

Dark, complex, engaging . . . a wonderful tour de force

Wily, shrewd, and terribly sad all at the same time: the story of a soul shrivelling against cool, dark, shiny backgrounds Kirkus Reviews

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