Molly Keane

M. J. Farrell

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

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, 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.

Good Behaviour

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