Intellectual Memoirs: New York, 1936-1938

by Mary McCarthy

Overview

Mary McCarthy vividly recalls her early years in New York before she began writing novels and stories. At that time, she wrote reviews for the Nation and the New Republic, was active in the American Communist Party, and was married to activist actor/playwright Harold Johnsrud. Foreword by Elizabeth Hardwick.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780156447874
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/04/1993
Series:	Harvest Book Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

MARY MCCARTHY (1912–1989) was an award-winning short-story writer, bestselling novelist, essayist, and critic. She was the author of The Stones of Florence and Birds of America, among other books.

Editorial Reviews

Belletrist McCarthy died in 1989, before she was able to complete the last installment of this autobiographical work. She did finish a significant portion, which covers her years in New York from 1936 to 1938. With a substantial (15 pp.) foreword by Elizabeth Hardwick. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

For all its final aborted promise, this slender sequel to How I Grew (1987), left unfinished at McCarthy's death in 1989, vibrates with the wicked wit and moral astringency that made the author a giant of American belles-lettres. If How I Grew covered the birth of her intellectual consciousness, this volume details the birth of McCarthy's career as a writer—practicing her craft as a twentysomething, Waspish book and theater critic at Partisan Review while accumulating the experience that would nourish her later career and quarrels (including her decisive break with Stalinism and the sequel encounter that inspired "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Suit"). In her fond introduction, friend Elizabeth Hardwick traces McCarthy's tactile re-creation of time, place, and character to her "somewhat obsessional concern for the integrity of sheer fact in matters both trivial and striking." The result, when combined with her familiar mockery of phonies and poseurs, is explosive laughter. Witness incidents about Corliss Lamont, a "pawky freckled swain" who unsuccessfully attempted to seduce her; and about a rival for her first husband's affections, "a yellow-eyed lynxlike blonde given to stretching herself like the cats she fancied." Equally incapable of lying about herself—"self-deception always chilled me"—McCarthy recounts how she wrote a politically correct review for fellow-traveler Malcolm Cowley at The New Republic, drunkenly sat on Max Eastman's lap at a party, and slept with three different men within 24 hours. Most of all, she ruefully recalls how badly she hurt her lover, Partisan Review editor Philip Rahv, by embarking on an affair with, and later disastrous marriage to,Edmund Wilson. A small gem, viewing an era of deep political and personal engagement with no tears and a brave heart.

Kirkus Reviews