Molly Keane
Molly Keane, born Mary Nesta Skrine on July 4, 1904, in County Kildare, Ireland, was a distinguished writer known for her satirical novels and plays that explored the lives of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Raised in privilege on a country estate, Keane developed a literary passion influenced by her mother, a successful poet. She began her writing career under the pseudonym M. J. Farrell in the 1920s, producing works that gently critiqued the genteel lifestyles of her contemporaries while creating rich, multidimensional characters.
Keane's early novels, such as "The Knight of the Cheerful Countenance," offered a humorous take on the struggles of aristocrats confronting modern realities. After a nearly twenty-year hiatus from writing, her return in the 1980s with "Good Behaviour" marked a significant resurgence, garnering critical acclaim and recognition alongside notable authors like Muriel Spark.
Her later works, including "Time After Time" and "Loving and Giving," continued to delve into themes of family dynamics and the challenges of maintaining social facades in changing times. Keane passed away on April 22, 1996, leaving behind a legacy of vivid storytelling and sharp social commentary that resonates with readers interested in the complexities of class and identity in Ireland.
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Subject Terms
Molly Keane
Irish novelist and playwright.
- Born: July 4, 1904
- Birthplace: County Kildare, Ireland
- Died: April 22, 1996
- Place of death: Ardmore, County Waterford, Ireland
Biography
Molly Keane was born Mary Nesta Skrine in County Kildare, Ireland, on July 4, 1904. She was born into privilege; her father was a landowner who moved the family to a rambling estate in County Wexford when Keane was three. Her mother was a successful writer, known as the Poetess of the Glens for her sentimental ballads. Schooled at home by her governess, Keane absorbed the upper-class country life that defined the wealthy Anglo-Irish, a world of genteel sports, elegant hunts, and horseback riding.
Drawn to reading (particularly Jane Austen), Keane decided to try her hand at writing in her mid-twenties so she could subsidize her clothing allowance. Certain that writing would not fit in with the anti-intellectual world of country life, Keane submitted her first manuscript under the pseudonym M. J. Farrell. With the publication of The Knight of the Cheerful Countenance in 1926, Keane began a nearly thirty-year career, producing numerous satirical novels that examined, with gentle affection, the lifestyle of the leisured country residents whom she knew so well. Like Austen and Evelyn Waugh, Keane created vivid characters who never descended into cartoons. Keane dissected with a careful eye the foibles of aristocrats forced to face the realities of a contemporary world that made maintaining their strict code of behavior difficult and ultimately impossible. Keane also wrote several plays that continued her dissection of the Irish country life.
By the early 1960s, however, changes in the novel and drama had rendered Keane’s art out of fashion; the novel had moved into experimental forms and drama favored biting social realism. With the sudden death of her husband in 1961, Keane retired to an estate in County Waterford. Nearly twenty years later, however, Keane would return, now writing under her own name, with Good Behaviour, a generational saga of an impoverished, aging Anglo-Irish family maintaining the facade of aristocratic life despite its unruly and often licentious inclinations. Keane’s tone, capturing the family’s decaying grace with decidedly dark humor and cutting satire, found immediate critical success, and the book was short-listed for the coveted Booker Prize. Keane, nearing seventy, returned to the spotlight, being compared to novelists Muriel Spark and Iris Murdoch. Her career revitalized, Keane completed Time After Time, a black comedy centering on three decrepit sisters and a half-blind brother desperately maintaining a dilapidated estate. Loving and Giving (1988) relates the story of a young woman, raised amid the aristocratic ruin of the Anglo-Irish, seeking to find her own way in a contemporary world while struggling with the emotional toll of her upbringing.
Respected by a new generation of critics and readers, Keane died at her Waterford estate on April 22, 1996. With wry humor and a humane and generous eye for unforgettable characters, Keane, in what turned out to be two careers, produced novels able to evoke with uncanny perception and lyrical prose a way of life both splendidly rich and terrifyingly empty.
Author Works
Long Fiction:
The Knight of the Cheerful Countenance, 1926
Young Entry, 1929
Taking Chances, 1929
Mad Puppetstown, 1931
Conversation Piece, 1932 (Point-to-Point)
Devoted Ladies, 1934
Full House, 1935
The Rising Tide, 1937
Two Days in Aragon, 1941
The Enchanting Witch, 1951 (Loving Without Tears)
Treasure Hunt, 1952
Good Behaviour, 1981
Time After Time, 1983
Loving and Giving, 1988 (pb. in the United States as Queen Lear, 1989)
Drama:
Spring Meeting, pr. 1938
Ducks and Drakes, pr. 1941
Treasure Hunt, pr. 1949
Dazzling Prospect, pr. 1961
Bibliography
Athill, Diana. "Diana Athill on Molly Keane: ‘I Admired Many Authors. But Molly, I Loved.'" The Guardian, 21 Jan. 2017, www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/21/diana-athill-molly-keane. Accessed 21 June 2017. Keane's editor, Diana Athill, recounts her relationship with the author and remembers the first publishing of Good Behaviour.
Hourican, Emily. "Brilliant, Fascinating and Complicated—Molly Keane and the Anglo Irish World That Proved Her Inspiration." Belfast Telegraph, 14 Jan. 2017, www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/brilliant-fascinating-and-complicated-molly-keane-and-the-anglo-irish-world-that-proved-her-inspiration-35359847.html. Accessed 21 June 2017. Provides a summarized biography of Keane based upon the newly released biography written by her daughter, Molly Keane: A Life.
Leland, Mary. "My Mother, Molly Keane: Caustic Chronicler of the Lost Anglo-Irish World." The Irish Times, 7 Jan. 2017, www.irishtimes.com/culture/my-mother-molly-keane-caustic-chronicler-of-the-lost-anglo-irish-world-1.2902953. Accessed 21 June 2017. An interview with Keane's daughter shortly before the publication of her biography of her mother, Molly Keane: A Life.
Reisman, Mara. "“Slaughter Was Going On in the Dining Room”: Food and Violence in Molly Keane’s Fiction." Women's Studies, vol. 44, no. 2, 2015, pp. 156–82. A literary analysis that focuses on the connection between the concept of good behavior and food, specifically how children and servants in the novels Good Behaviour and Loving and Giving use food to comprehend their place in the social structure.
Thomas, Jr., Robert McG. "Molly Keane, 91, a Novelist; Portrayed the Anglo-Irish Gentry." The New York Times, 24 Apr. 1996, www.nytimes.com/1996/04/24/arts/molly-keane-91-a-novelist-portrayed-the-anglo-irish-gentry.html. Accessed 21 June 2017. Obituary covering Keane's life and work.