Good Behaviour: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick – Booker Prize Gems (Virago Modern Classics) - Softcover

Keane, Molly

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349019606 ISBN 13: 9780349019604

Publisher: Virago, 2025

Synopsis

We kept our heads above the morass, stifled screaming despairs only by the exercise of Good Behaviour.

Behind the gates of Temple Alice, the aristocratic St Charles family is sinking into a state of decaying grace. Aroon, the unlovely daughter of the house, silently longs for affection - which she receives neither from her icy mother nor her hunting-obsessed father. The fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem stifled by the rules of good behaviour. But no crumbling codes of conduct can save the members of the St Charles family from their own dark secrets and repressed cruelties . . .

Introduced by Maggie O'Farrell

'Molly Keane is a mistress of wicked comedy' VOGUE

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

'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' MAGGIE O'FARRELL

'I really wish I had written this book...You read it with mounting horror and hilarity' HILARY MANTEL

About this title

About the Author

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.

From the Back Cover

We kept our heads above the morass, stifled screaming despairs only by the exercise of Good Behaviour.

Behind the gates of Temple Alice, the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family is sinking into a state of decaying grace. Aroon, the unlovely daughter of the house, silently longs for affection and approval - neither of which are to be found from her icily elegant mother or her hunting-obsessed father. The fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem shut out by the rituals of Good Behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the St Charles family from their own dark secrets and unruly desires...


Introduced by Maggie O'Farrell


'Molly Keane is a mistress of wicked comedy' VOGUE

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

'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' MAGGIE O'FARRELL


'I really wish I had written this book...You read it with mounting horror and hilarity' HILARY MANTEL

Edition details

• Publisher: Virago
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0349019606
• ISBN 13: 9780349019604
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304