Good Behaviour

Praise

“Molly Keane’s Good Behaviour 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, The New York Times

“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, author of Wolf Hall

“Simultaneously light and dark, pleasurable and harrowing, Good Behaviour may appeal chiefly to readers drawn to characters who are a mixture of well-meaning and hilariously vile, victimizer and victim. . . . Aroon St. Charles is Molly Keane’s great creation, Good Behaviour her masterpiece.”
—Francine Prose, The New York Review of Books

“A fine novel, wickedly alive.”
—Victoria Glendinning, The Sunday Times

“Dark, complex, engaging . . . a wonderful tour de force.”
—Marian Keyes, author of Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married

“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, author of Hamnet

“Enchanting.”
—Edna O’Brien, The Observer

“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.”
—The Bookseller

“Good Behaviour 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.”
—Vulture, “Best Books of 2021 So Far”

“Keane has set herself a technical challenge. She must make us see all the things that Aroon doesn’t see. . . . There are many moments of brilliant, farcical comedy. . . . Keane’s prose roils with affect denied but persistently, pungently alive.”
—Anthony Domestico, Commonweal