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Good Behaviour

A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick – Booker Prize Gems
By Molly Keane
Series: VMC
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Brief Description
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... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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A darkly comic novel about the crumbling aristocracy, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, reissued with a striking new jacket as part of the Virago Modern Classics Green Spine design.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

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

Series: VMC

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    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....
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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780349019604

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 23 January 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Virago Press Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 24.0mm

Width: 126.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 240g

Pages: 304

Collections

Classic Fiction Classic General Fiction Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Molly Keane Series: VMC

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.

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  • Good Behaviour
    '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, the large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy, and love seem locked out by...
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