Imprint
- Virago
- Virago
Virago Modern Classics, Fiction, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Classic fiction (pre c 1945), Religious & spiritual fiction
*A brilliant comic novel about Anglo-Ireland that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
*'A mistress of wicked comedy' MALCOLM BRADBURY, VOGUE'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.
Praise for Good Behaviour: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick Booker Prize Gems
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'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.' VOGUE
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'A witty, black comedy of manners, GOOD BEHAVIOUR is a memorable novel by an Irish writer whose only equal is Elizabeth Bowen.' BOOKSELLER
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'A fine novel, wickedly alive' Victoria Glendinning, SUNDAY TIMES
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'Enchanting' Edna O'Brien, OBSERVER
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'May well become a classic among English Novels' NEW YORK TIMES
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'The very best of Anglo - Irish writing ' - Clare Boylan
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'This self-possessed, crisply detailed and alertly funny novel is a wonder. Silent for decades, Keane has abruptly produced a masterpiece.' NEWSWEEK
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'Miss Keane writes easily, with wit and charm. She treats her characters with both sensitivity and humour, and there is much to make you smile. It is a gentle book but showing a few sharp edges, and always displaying an unpretentious love of writing.' LIVERPOOL DAILY POST
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.
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