Jane Ridley

Bad behaviour

Her daughter Sally Phipps gives us an affectionate portrait, but it’s clear that Molly was far from an ideal mother

issue 11 February 2017

Molly Keane achieved fame and critical acclaim in 1981 aged 75, when she published the novel Good Behaviour, a razor-sharp social comedy about the Anglo-Irish in the 1930s. Her success was the more sensational because it was unexpected. Twenty years previously her play Dazzling Prospect had flopped disastrously at the box office.

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