McCarthy, Mary Th�r�se 1912-89
US novelist and critic

She was born in Seattle, Washington, and at the age of eight won a state prize for an article entitled 'The Irish in American History'. Educated at Vassar College, New York, she wrote book reviews for the Nation and the New Republic and was an editor for Covici Friede in 1936-37. She was an editor and theatre critic for the Partisan Review (1937-48), during which period she wrote articles, stories and novels. Her voice has often been described as scathing, yet although she brought little emotional warmth to her work, she was a highly intelligent, observant novelist. Her best-known fiction includes The Company She Keeps (1942), The Groves of Academe (1952) and The Group (1963), a bestseller about eight Vassar graduates and their sex lives. She also wrote the documentary denunciations of US involvement in the Vietnam War, Vietnam (1967) and Hanoi (1968). Other works include A Charmed Life (1955), Sights and Spectacles (1956), the autobiographical Memories of a Catholic Childhood (1957) and Cannibals and Missionaries (1979).

Bibliography: C Gerlderman, Mary McCarthy (1988)