Molly Keane

Molly Keane (20 July 1904 – 22 April 1996), Mary Nesta Skrine, and who also wrote as M. J. Farrell, was an Irish novelist and playwright.

Early life Keane was born Mary Nesta Skrine in Ryston Cottage, Newbridge, County Kildare. Her father, Walter Clarmont Skrine (died 1930), was from a Somerset family and owned land in Alberta, Canada, and was a fanatic for horses and hunting; her mother, Agnes Shakespeare Higginson (1864–1955), a poet who wrote under the pseudonym Moira O'Neill, was daughter of Charles Henry Higginson (son of James Macaulay Higginson, Governor of British Mauritius from 1851 to 1857), a colonial administrator in Mauritius. and refused to go to boarding school in England as her siblings had done. She was educated by her mother, governesses, Relations between Keane and her parents were cold and she states that she had no fun in her life as a child. Her own passion for hunting and horses was born out of her need for fun and enjoyment. She was a member of Aosdána. Her husband died suddenly in 1946, and, following the failure of a play, she published nothing for twenty years. In 1981 Good Behaviour came out under her own name; the manuscript, which had languished in a drawer for many years, was lent to a visitor, the actress Peggy Ashcroft, who encouraged Keane to publish it. The novel was warmly received and was short-listed for the Booker Prize.

Personal life and death It was through the Perry family that Molly met Bobby Keane, whom she married in 1938.

Critical reception Reviewers were generally appreciative of Keane's novels. Her mix of comic wit and poetic sensibility was called delightful. Some reviewers recoiled at the "indecent" subject of Devoted Ladies, which was a lesbian relationship between Jessica and Jane. Homosexuality was also a topic in Good Behaviour.

A reviewer in The New York Times book review in August 1991 stated that Good Behaviour may well become "a classic among English Novels". It connected her in a personal way with the famous London editor, Diana Athill, who identified strongly with Keane after reading it, insisted on editing it herself, later calling the book "mindblowingly clever."

Although the real identity of M. J. Farrell had long since become known in Irish and English literary circles, it was not until Good Behaviour that Keane felt secure in publishing under her own name. After the publication of Good Behaviour, her earlier works, including Conversation Piece and Rising Tide, were re-issued.