Good Behaviour - by Molly Keane (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"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"--<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>This Booker Prize-short listed dark satire of 20th-century Irish society is back in print.</b> <p/>Is it possible to kill with kindness? As Molly Keane's Booker Prize-short-listed dark comedy suggests, not only can kindness be deadly, it just may be the best form of revenge. The novel opens as Aroon St. Charles prepares to serve her invalid mother a splendid luncheon--the silver gleams, the linens glow--of rabbit mousse, a dish her mother despises. In fact, a single whiff of the stuff is enough to knock the old lady dead. "All my life so far I have done everything for the best reasons and the most unselfish motives," says Aroon soon after. In the pages that follow she will make her case, reminiscing about her youth among the hunting-and-fishing classes of Ireland, <br>a faded aristocracy dedicated to distraction even as their fortunes dwindle. <p/>Keane's brilliant sleight of hand is to allow her blinkered heroine to narrate her own development from neglected child, to ungainly debutante, to bitter spinster: Aroon understands nothing, yet she reveals all.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>Molly Keane's <i>Good Behaviour</i> 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." --Allan Gurganus, <i>The New York Times</i> <p/>"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." --Hilary Mantel <p/>"A fine novel, wickedly alive." --Victoria Glendinning, <i>The</i> <i>Sunday Times</i> <p/>"Dark, complex, engaging . . . a wonderful tour de force." --Marian Keyes <p/>"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 <i>Good Behaviour</i> and <i>Loving and Giving </i>are the ones I return to most." --Maggie O'Farrell <p/>"Enchanting." --Edna O'Brien, <i>The</i> <i>Observer<br></i><br>"An extraordinary tour de force of fictional presentation . . . a masterpiece . . . a technically remarkable work, as sharp as a blade. . . . Molly Keane is a mistress of wicked comedy." --<i>Vogue</i> <p/>"A witty, black comedy of manners, <i>Good Behaviour</i> is a memorable novel by an Irish writer whose only equal is Elizabeth Bowen." --<i>The</i> <i>Bookseller <p/></i>"<i>Good Behaviour</i> includes very little good behavior, featuring instead delicious and deleterious accounts of illicit sex and wild high jinks, and a mother-daughter duo who can scrap with the best of them." --<i>Vulture</i>, "Best Books of 2021 So Far"<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Molly Keane</b> (1904-1996) was a novelist and playwright born in Kildare, Ireland, to a wealthy hunting family. As a teenager, she started writing in secret, composing fiction that satirized the idiosyncrasies of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. She published eleven novels under the pseudonym M. J. Farrell, first publishing under her own name in 1981, at the age of seventy-seven, with <i>Good</i> <i>Behaviour</i>. <p/><b>Amy Gentry</b> is the author of <i>Good as Gone</i>, a <i>New York Times</i> Notable Book, and <i>Last Woman Standing</i>. She is also a nonfiction writer whose work has appeared in numerous outlets, including the <i>Chicago Tribune</i>, <i>Salon</i>, and <i>The Paris Review</i>. She lives in Austin, Texas.
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