Mary McCarthy

Blending memories and family myths, Mary McCarthy takes us back to the twenties, when she was orphaned in a world of relations as colourful, potent and mysterious as the Catholic religion. There were her grandmothers- one was a blood-curdling Catholic who combined piousness and pugnacity; the other was Jewish and wore a veil to hide the disastrous effects of a face-lift. There was wicked Uncle Myers who beat her for the good of her soul and Aunt Margaret who laced her orange juice with castor oil and taped her lips at night to prevent unhealthy 'mouth-breathing'. 'Many a time in the course of doing these memoirs, ' Mary McCarthy says, 'I have wished that I were writing fiction. ' But these were the people, along with the ladies of the Sacred Heart convent school, who helped to inspire her devastating sense of the sublime and ridiculous and her witty, novelist's imagination.

Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

A selection of essays by the novelist and critic represents pieces written between 1930 and 1979 and considers such topics as McCarthyism, Vietnam, Watergate, Eugene O'Neill, J.D. Salinger, Madame Bovary, A Streetcar Named Desire, and women's fashion magazines. Reprint.

A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays

This is the author’s first novel, which relates the experiences of a young bohemian intellectual. The six episodes create a fascinating portrait of a New York social circle of the 1930s. McCarthy’s bold insight and virtuoso style won her immediate recognition as one of the most accomplished, versatile, and penetrating writers in americanca.

The Company She Keeps

Hannah Arendt

Carol Brightman

Selections from the correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy trace the evolution of a unique friendship

The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy 1949-1975

Between Friends

Henry Mulcahy, a literature instructor at progressive Jocelyn College, is informed that his appointment will not be continued. Convinced he is disliked by the president of Jocelyn because of his abilities as a teacher and his independence of mass opinion, Mulcahy believes he is being made the victim of a witch-hunt. Plotting vengeance, Mulcahy battles to fight for justice and, in the process, reveals his true ethical nature.

The Groves of Academe

This smash bestseller about privileged Vassar classmates shocked America in the sixties and remains “juicy . . . witty . . . brilliant” (Cosmopolitan). At Vassar, they were known as “the group”—eight young women of privilege, the closest of friends, an eclectic mix of vibrant personalities. A week after graduation in 1933, they all gather for the wedding of Kay Strong, one of their own, before going their separate ways in the world. In the years that follow, they will each know accomplishment and loss in equal measure, pursuing careers and marriage, experiencing the joys and traumas of sexual awakening and motherhood, all while suffering through betrayals, infidelities, and sometimes madness. Some of them will drift apart. Some will play important roles in the personal dramas of others. But it is tragedy that will ultimately unite the group once again. A novel that stunned the world when it was first published in 1963, Mary McCarthy’s The Group found acclaim, controversy, and a place atop the New York Times bestseller list for nearly two years for its frank and controversial exploration of women’s issues, social concerns, and sexuality. A blistering satire of the mores of an emergent generation of women, The Group is McCarthy’s enduring masterpiece, still as relevant, powerful, and wonderfully entertaining fifty years on. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author’s estate.

A Novel

The Group

Mary McCarthy's second book satirises the everyday struggles of a utopian commune seeking refuge after the destruction of the Second World War. She hardly troubles to disguise her characters, which caused an explosion of outrage among the literary elite of the day, who did not fail to recognise themselves among her uncharitably, but all-too-accurately drawn portraits. It must be admitted: It is a cruel book. But it has outlasted its first detonation and can now be enjoyed for its aphoristic, cold-blooded dissection of the vanities of human endeavour.

The Oasis

Eight Vassar girls, determined not to be like Mother, decide to move with the times and put into action the ideas they have learned about in college.

The electrifying portrait of an idealistic young man who is an unwilling witness to the changes in society and its values. Here is a book that captures the very essence of the 1960s and is at the same time as fresh today as when it was first published in 1965.

Birds of America

O grupo

The author recounts her days in New York, discussing the breakup of her first marriage, her move to Greenwich Village, and the beginning of her literary career

New York, 1936-1938

Intellectual Memoirs

Mary McCarthy's memoir of her adolescence, highlighting her experiences in education as she recalls in intimate narrative the eight years before her marriage at age 21. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs.

How I Grew

El grupo

1963 ansågs den chockerande frispråkig och såldes i miljonupplagor. Idag räknas Mary McCarthys klassiker Gruppen, om åtta nyexaminerade studiekamrater som möter ett hårdare liv i 1930-talets New York, som en milstolpe i den moderna litteraturen. En skamlöst underhållande och bitsk kollektivroman om det moderna livets villkor, konstant relevant.”Att kalla Gruppen för urkällan i traditionen att skildra unga urbana kvinnors strävan inom områden som sex, relationer och karriär är ingen överdrift.” Kristofer Ahlström DN”Uppslukande, rolig, plågsam – jag betraktar den som ett mästerverk.” Hilary Mantel Översättare: Amanda Svensson

Gruppen

Martha Sinnott returns with her second husband to the New England artists' colony she left behind seven years earlier when she divorced her first husband. The townfolk have remained much the same, including Martha's former husband, who has relocated nearby. Martha is in touch with her former friends, who are in touch with her former husband, so Martha should be able to see him as well, shouldn't she?

A Charmed Life

A poignant and evocative novel of self-discovery that follows a young man in America and abroad, on a journey into adulthood during the turbulent 1960s It is 1964, and Peter Levi, a young student and bird watcher, has come to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Shy and innocent at nineteen years old, he arrives fresh from an extended Maine holiday with his vivacious mother, and is determined to live a life free of unwanted complications and unnecessary stress. But this is an era of great change in the world, a time when war is looming in Southeast Asia and social unrest is simmering. There is much to trouble and confuse the young American as he journeys through foreign countries--and feelings--into adulthood. For Peter, the simplicity of childhood is over--and his new life is becoming increasingly complex in a world growing more unrecognizable by the day. Mary McCarthy's splendid Birds of America is a moving and surprising coming-of-age tale: the unforgettable story of a young man's awakening, and a stunning evocation of the disorienting change of the 1960s.

This unique autobiography begins with McCarthy’s recollections of an indulgent, idyllic childhood tragically altered by the death of her parents in the influenza epidemic of 1918.

Mary McCarthy

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