Good Behaviour
A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick – Booker Prize Gems
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3.9 • 19 Ratings
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- £5.49
Publisher 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
Customer Reviews
Killing with kindness
Highly readable, black humour mixed with acute observation of social behaviour. The setting in an upper class Anglo Irish family in the 1930s should not put the reader off; the themes are universal. Treat a child badly enough, and don't be surprised if you produce a monster. My only caveat is that I am not convinced the book should have been written in the first person, as I found the narrator's mixture of acute perception and supreme obtuseness unconvincing. However,other people disagree with me.
The book is very cleverly constructed, with a deathbed scene (a murder in effect) at the start which, for me, had the effect of antagonising me from the narrator. I was therefore surprised to find myself rooting for this emotionally deprived child, despite the monstrousness of her (impeccably good) behaviour towards her remaining family.