I’m not sure what I was expecting when I bought Good Behaviour by Molly Keane. To be perfectly honest, I bought it for the cover primarily- as I mentioned in the Book Porn post, I couldn’t resist a book with bunnies designed by Eley Kishimoto (the design is called ‘Bunny Dance’. How could I not?) so I had no idea if I would actually like the story within the gorgeous cover. As it turns out, I did. Described as a black comedy, I found it to be far less funny than this suggests. The humour is of the uncomfortable kind, where you want to hide behind a cushion until it’s over, but it worked really well in the context of the narrative. It’s the story of Aroon St Charles, the daughter of an impoverished Anglo-Irish family in the early Twentieth century. It begins with matricide. From there, the narrative goes back to Aroon’s childhood and her experiences with unrequited love, a suicidal governess, a disturbed and loveless relationship with her mother and her desire for her father to notice her. Put in those basic terms, it sounds much less enjoyable than it actually it. The characters are really well-written, and each emotion is concisely put out in the open for the reader to feel. Aroon is not a likable character, but she is interesting in her naivety and snobbery, and knowing how the narrative ends/the book begins makes the tale compulsive reading.
4/5
