The Company She Kept: Mary Mccarthy Herself & Her Writing
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
What happens when one brilliant literary mind turns its unflinching gaze upon another? The Company She Kept is a penetrating critical biography in which Doris Grumbach chronicles the life and literary output of Mary McCarthy — one of America's most formidable, witty, and controversially outspoken writers of the twentieth century. Grumbach presents a compelling portrait of McCarthy not merely as a novelist, but as a woman whose personal experiences — her turbulent relationships, fierce intellectual independence, and sharp satirical eye — were inextricably woven into the fabric of her fiction and essays. From the autobiographical threads of Memories of a Catholic Girlhood to the biting social commentary of The Group, Grumbach illustrates how McCarthy's life and art were one and the same. Written with scholarly rigour yet an accessible, engaging prose style, this critical study argues that to understand McCarthy's writing is to understand the woman herself — her contradictions, her brilliance, and her audacity. Grumbach situates McCarthy within the broader landscape of American literary culture, detailing her relationships with the New York intellectual elite and her enduring influence on both feminist thought and the American novel. For readers who admire McCarthy's razor-sharp wit and those newly discovering her work, this biography poses a question as tantalising as McCarthy herself: where does the woman end and the writer begin?
Author: Doris Grumbach
Format: Hardback
Published: 1967, The Bodley Head
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
What happens when one brilliant literary mind turns its unflinching gaze upon another? The Company She Kept is a penetrating critical biography in which Doris Grumbach chronicles the life and literary output of Mary McCarthy — one of America's most formidable, witty, and controversially outspoken writers of the twentieth century. Grumbach presents a compelling portrait of McCarthy not merely as a novelist, but as a woman whose personal experiences — her turbulent relationships, fierce intellectual independence, and sharp satirical eye — were inextricably woven into the fabric of her fiction and essays. From the autobiographical threads of Memories of a Catholic Girlhood to the biting social commentary of The Group, Grumbach illustrates how McCarthy's life and art were one and the same. Written with scholarly rigour yet an accessible, engaging prose style, this critical study argues that to understand McCarthy's writing is to understand the woman herself — her contradictions, her brilliance, and her audacity. Grumbach situates McCarthy within the broader landscape of American literary culture, detailing her relationships with the New York intellectual elite and her enduring influence on both feminist thought and the American novel. For readers who admire McCarthy's razor-sharp wit and those newly discovering her work, this biography poses a question as tantalising as McCarthy herself: where does the woman end and the writer begin?