Molly Keane A Life by Sally Phipps
Virago £20 pp338
When Molly Keane’s Booker-shortlisted novel Good Behaviour was published by Andre Deutsch in 1981, it was immediately appropriated by feminists of the day, eager to carve another notch on the post of neglected female achievement. The fact that Keane was never a feminist in the commonly understood sense of that word, nor had she been overlooked, never crossed their minds. It was seemingly enough that she was a wickedly witty and charming Irishwoman who had written a successful novel.
Molly Keane, née Skrine, was a woman of genius, as this beautifully written, anecdotal and contextualising biography by her daughter Sally Phipps demonstrates. As a child Keane was often lonely, and felt distant from her mother in particular. The Skrine family was based in Co Wexford, where the maintenance of a Big House, land and the hunt were primary occupations. Phipps recalls her mother remarking on the Anglo-Irish Protestant predilection for house-to-house entertainment that “we had poor food, bad wine and no heat. It was an absolute duty to be amusing”.
This biography also reveals the full context of the Anglo-Irish dilemma, as much as it illuminates Keane’s career as a writer. For years she kept silent about her books, publishing under the pseudonym MJ Farrell on the grounds that it would not do to be seen to be either intellectual or bohemian. As she said herself, “the chaps dreaded a clever girl”, and the important thing was to be able to hunt well and courageously, and to suppress any sign of physical or emotional discomfort. Keane was good in the saddle, understanding the whole sensuous, sexy performance of the riding uniform — and the high jinks which frequently followed a good day’s hunting.
“For years she kept silent about her books
She married the love of her life, Bobby Keane of Woodrooffe, in 1939. By then she was a successful playwright and Spring Meeting had been produced to great acclaim the year before, both on Broadway and in London, freeing her from financial worry. Phipps tells us that Keane did not often admit she had a gift, and it was akin to a secret burden she carried, a means to a financial end. The question of finance dogged most of her life, and she worked hard to maintain a certain style she adored, though loathing the retreat to the isolation of her writing room. Politically unaware of events in the greater world, the rise of Hitler and the outbreak of the Second World War seem to have scarcely touched her.
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As life in the new republic unfolded, the Anglo-Irish position regarding loyalty to the state remained ambivalent, and by the late 1940s the coherence of its class was in decline. Although Keane herself received scant education, both her daughters attended university in England, where Phipps studied English and her sister Virginia took psychology. The Anglo-Irish class arguably contributed little to Ireland, apart from husbanding and maintaining the land it owned. The professional classes — doctors, solicitors — joined in the hunt, and cordial relations were developed with certain locals, but some Irish commentators have criticised the Anglo-Irish as a dissipated race intent on maintaining their chilly ancestral piles at all costs.
It was never so simple. Keane and her like suffered at the hands of the “new” Irish who were focused on national independence. The family was shamefully burned out of their home in Ballyrankin, Co Wexford, in 1921, part of a sustained pattern of torchings which was widespread during the Irish War of Independence and razed much of ascendency Protestantism to the ground.
Keane’s literary fortunes waxed and waned. She spent money freely, enjoyed good food and company, and was diligent and talented in domestic skills. The biography highlights the range of artistic friends drawn to her, such as Jeffrey Bernard, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, John Gielgud, Elizabeth Bowen, Norah McGuinness (who painted her at Ardmore in 1945), Micheál MacLiammóir, Clare Boylan and the young Waterford poet Thomas McCarthy, who is still a preserver of Keane’s reputation. The late Hugh Leonard was instrumental in securing her acceptance to the artists’ affiliation Aosdana, which provided a much-needed stipend.
Prince Charles also became an admirer, and Dirk Bogarde commented in response to someone else’s naive description of her as “dear little darling Molly” that “dear little darling Molly is as sharp as a box of knives and her work is here to prove it”.
In later life, she moved to Dysert, in Ardmore, Co Waterford. Dysert was a bungalow, a dwelling the sharp-tongued Keane might once have jeered at, Phipps tells us. She transformed it to her liking through horticultural and other talents. Keane never quite recovered from the premature death of her husband Bobby, in a completely unforseeable post-operative disaster, but mustered enough spirit to continue to live life on her own terms.
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Phipps has produced an authoritative, interesting biography layered with the succulent flavours of Keane’s life. She illuminates the genius and generosity of a woman who was productive on a grand scale, who took pleasure in the tender care of place, and who fostered enduring friendships. Keane was a well-established writer and playwright before feminism discovered her in 1981, having already written 11 novels and four plays as MJ Farrell. Only her last three novels appeared under the name Molly Keane, and these comic tales of Anglo-Irish life had an increasingly dark and subtly critical shading. This sparkling biography serves her memory and achievement fairly, fondly and, one suspects, truthfully. c