Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy – Life, Work, and Enduring Influence

A full biography of Mary McCarthy (1912–1989): her early struggles, career as novelist, critic, activist, and her sharp observations on culture, politics, and feminism. Discover her writing, controversies, and legacy.

Introduction

Mary Therese McCarthy (June 21, 1912 – October 25, 1989) was a formidable American novelist, critic, essayist, and public intellectual whose wit, moral scrutiny, and unflinching honesty made her one of the most admired—and often contested—voices of the mid-20th century.

She is best known for her bestselling novel The Group, her provocative memoirs, her essays on politics and culture, and a famously bitter feud with fellow writer Lillian Hellman. Her work traversed fiction, autobiography, criticism, and reportage, always with a sharply critical eye toward hypocrisy, ideology, and the contradictions of American life.

Early Life and Family

Mary McCarthy was born on June 21, 1912 in Seattle, Washington, to Roy McCarthy and Therese Preston McCarthy.

In 1918, both of her parents died during the influenza epidemic, leaving Mary (age 6) and her three younger brothers orphaned. Afterward, the children were placed with maternal grandparents in Seattle and sent to board with their father’s Irish Catholic relatives in Minneapolis for a time, where their upbringing was harsh and strict.

Mary’s complex religious and cultural identity was shaped by her family background: her father was Irish Catholic, her maternal side had Jewish and Protestant heritage, and her childhood in Catholic schools influenced her early spiritual development and later rejection of faith.

As a youth, she began reading deeply while under the care of her grandfather, who had an extensive library. That intellectual exposure in Seattle played a significant role in her literary awakening.

Education included attending the Sacred Heart Convent school, then public schooling in Seattle, and later the Annie Wright Seminary in Tacoma.

Education and Early Career

McCarthy went to Vassar College, from 1929 to 1933, earning an A.B. with honors. At Vassar she founded a literary magazine Con Spirito with classmates including Elizabeth Bishop, and began immersing herself in intellectual circles.

After graduating, she moved to New York, where she began writing book reviews and essays for influential periodicals such as The Nation and The New Republic. She also became active in Partisan Review, the anti-Stalinist liberal magazine, eventually serving as its theater editor.

Her early fiction often drew on her social milieu and her observations of intellectual life. Her debut novel, The Company She Keeps (1942), is a semi-autobiographical work about a young woman navigating New York’s literary circles.

Major Works & Literary Career

Fiction & Autobiographical Novels

McCarthy published 28 books over her lifetime across fiction, memoir, and essays. Her fiction often blended autobiography with thinly fictionalized characters based on real acquaintances.

Her most famous novel is The Group (published 1963). It follows eight Vassar graduates from the class of 1933 as they navigate expectations around marriage, work, motherhood, sexuality, and friendship in mid-20th-century America. The Group remained a New York Times bestseller for nearly two years and was adapted into a film.

Other notable works include The Oasis (1949), The Groves of Academe (1952), A Charmed Life, Birds of America, Cannibals and Missionaries, and her memoirs Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (1957) and How I Grew (1987).

Her memoir Memories of a Catholic Girlhood is regarded as a powerful piece of psychological and cultural self-portraiture, blending truth, memory, and narrative reconstruction.

She also traveled to Vietnam during the war and wrote Vietnam and Hanoi (1967, 1968), documenting her views on the conflict—controversially.

Criticism, Essays & Public Voice

McCarthy was equally celebrated as an essayist and critic. She published essays, reviews, and social commentary in prominent journals including Harper’s, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and Partisan Review.

Her critical style is noted for its precision, moral clarity, irony, and sometimes ruthless exposure of hypocrisy in politics, culture, and intellectual life.

She was awarded major honors later in life: in 1984 she received the National Medal for Literature and the Edward MacDowell Medal, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Ideology, Personal Life & Conflicts

McCarthy left the Catholic Church in her youth, becoming an atheist, and she distanced herself from leftist orthodoxies after disillusionment with Stalinism.

Her political engagements included opposition to McCarthyism, critique of Cold War ideology, and vocal activism on Vietnam and civil liberties.

Her personal life was marked by dramatic relationships: she married four times. Her best-known marriage was to literary critic Edmund Wilson (1938–1946), with whom she had a son.

One of her most notorious public conflicts was with Lillian Hellman, whom McCarthy repeatedly accused of dishonesty. On The Dick Cavett Show she famously said:

“Every word [Hellman] writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.”

Hellman filed a libel lawsuit against her, which was dropped shortly after Hellman’s death.

McCarthy taught at Bard College in the mid-1940s and again in the late 1980s, and also had short teaching stints at Sarah Lawrence College.

After the death of her friend Hannah Arendt in 1975, McCarthy became her literary executor, preparing Arendt’s unfinished work The Life of the Mind for publication.

Mary McCarthy died on October 25, 1989 in New York City, of lung cancer. She was 77.

Style, Themes & Intellectual Traits

McCarthy’s writing is distinguished by:

• Acerbic wit and moral seriousness: She wielded irony and critique to expose hypocrisy and self-deception.

• Autobiographical infusion: Her fiction often draws from her own experiences, friends, and intellectual milieu, with thinly disguised portraits of real people.

• Intersection of private and public: She explored the tensions women faced trying to reconcile intellectual ambition, marriage, sexuality, and societal expectations. The Group is a landmark exploration of those issues.

• Clarity and economy of prose: Critics praise her spare, vigorous, and precise style.

• Intellectual boldness: She was unafraid of controversy and confrontation—her essays, reviews, and public statements often challenged powerful figures, institutions, and prevailing opinions.

Her subject matter spanned sexuality, feminism, ideology, the role of public intellectuals, and the contradictions of modern liberalism.

Notable Quotes

Here are several notable statements by Mary McCarthy:

“We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story.”
“I combine concrete cynicism with a sort of vague optimism.”
“Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.” (On Lillian Hellman)
“The labor of keeping house is labor in its most naked state, for labor is toil that never finishes…”
“Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character.”

These reflect McCarthy’s blend of personal insight, social critique, and psychological acumen.

Legacy & Influence

Mary McCarthy occupies a prominent place among the “New York intellectuals” of the mid-20th century. Her influence is evident in several domains:

• Literary and cultural criticism: Her essays and critical voice shaped debates on ideology, literature, and intellectual responsibility.

• Feminist literature: The Group remains a landmark for how educated women’s lives were portrayed, revealing the gulf between social ideals and constrained reality.

• The role of the public intellectual: McCarthy exemplified the intellectual who moves between fiction, journalism, criticism, and activism—refusing strict specialization.

• Feuds and public persona: Her feud with Hellman and her outspoken critiques made her a figure of both admiration and controversy, and her persona as a sharp-tongued critic became part of her public legacy.

• Enduring works: The Group, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, her essays on Vietnam and Watergate, and her critical writings continue to be studied and reprinted.

Lessons & Reflections

• Honesty and vulnerability can deepen intellectual work: McCarthy trusted her own doubts, memories, and contradictions as material.

• Critique requires courage: She often risked alienating powerful figures to speak what she saw, placing the role of the critic at moral center.

• The personal is political, but not simplistic: Her fiction and essays show how intimate lives are shaped by ideologies, social structures, and moral tensions.

• Crossing genres strengthens voice: Her capacity to move between fiction, memoir, criticism, and reportage enriched her perspective and reach.

• Legacy is complex: McCarthy’s contributions to feminist literature and intellectual life are tempered by her acuity, her conflicts, and the sometimes cutting personal style.

Conclusion

Mary McCarthy remains a compelling and multifaceted author whose life and work challenge the boundaries of narrative, criticism, and public life. She blended sharp intellect with moral urgency, probing American society’s contradictions through fiction, essays, and memoir.