Good Behavior. This item is unavailable.Good Behavior

Miss Iris Aroon St. Charles's recollections of her shy, awkward youth among the elegant Irish country gentry early in the century gradually reveal a barbaric strain, a faint but insistent aroma of cruelty, and the ruling delusion of her life

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)

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)

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)

A witty, black comedy of manners, GOOD BEHAVIOUR is a memorable novel by an Irish writer whose only equal is Elizabeth Bowen. (BOOKSELLER)

A fine novel, wickedly alive (Victoria Glendinning, SUNDAY TIMES)

Enchanting (Edna O'Brien, OBSERVER)