Böcker av Mary McCarthy

A master of the art of the essay, Mary McCarthy's 'On the Contrary' offers a thoughtful and incisive exploration of the issues and ideas that defined mid-century America. Whether reflecting on the challenges of feminism, the contradictions of politics, or the complexities of art and culture, McCarthy brings her trademark wit and erudition to bear on a wide range of topics.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"Come to me / when you have wrestled / with the angel / no one else can see..." Has there ever been a more welcoming invitation to a book? I soon gave up trying to mark favorite and most powerful phrases. Mary McCarthy knows that every line, like every life experience, is essential to the whole.I've admired McCarthy as an ekphrastic poet for years, so I'm delighted to find she's just as eloquent (and bravely vulnerable) in sharing her struggles through depression. How to Become Invisible is more than good reading. It can be life changing for those wanting to become visible again.-Alarie Tennille, author of Three A.M. at the Museum and Running CounterclockwiseThis is a superb collection of poems that a detail personal account of experiencing bipolar disorder. Both depression and mania are vividly described, as well as the details of electroshock treatment. "You can't prepare for a catastrophe," the speaker states. Neither can you prepare for the startling drama of these poems.-Oriana Ivy, author of How to Jump From a Moving Train and Paradise AnonymousIn her hard-hitting new collection, How to Become Invisible (Kelsay, 2023), Mary McCarthy takes the role of Dante's Virgil, guiding us through the hell of bipolar disorder, where every ordinary object conceals a wealth of dark meaning, and the current moment "will always be an unexpected stranger/coming at you quick/as a bullet/you must catch in your teeth" (Challenges). However, while Virgil's path leads toward paradise, this dead-end road does not. The enforced normality of medication and shock treatment renders patients' minds "clean as a stone" (ECT The Curing), monochromatic and anonymous, nothing the speaker can recognize as "normal." At the last, our guide looks backward at the intensity of madness, enticing us to rejoin her "when [we too] have wrestled/with the angel/no one else can see" (Invitation). -Robbi Nester, author of Balance (White Violet, 2012), A Likely Story (Moon Tide, 2014), Other-Wise (Kelsay, 2017), and Narrow Bridge (Main Street Rag, 2019), http: //www.robbinester.net

A vicious and brilliant satire of human vanity from the author of the classic bestseller The GroupLong out of print, Mary McCarthy's second novel is a bitingly funny satire set in the early years of the Cold War about a group of writers, editors, and intellectuals who retreat to rural New England to found a hilltop utopia. With this group loosely divided into two factions-purists, led by the libertarian editor Macdougal Macdermott, and the realists, skeptics led by the smug Will Taub-the situation is ripe not only for disaster but for comedy, as reality clashes with their dreams of a perfect society.Though written as a roman à clef, McCarthy barely disguised her characters, including using her former lover Philip Rahv, founder of Partisan Review, as the model for Will Taub. As a result, the novel caused an absolute explosion of outrage among the literary elite of the day, who clearly recognized themselves among her all-too-accurate portraits. Rahv threatened a lawsuit to stop publication. Diana Trilling, Lionel Trilling's wife, called McCarthy a "thug." McCarthy's friend Dwight McDonald (Macdougal Macdermott) called it "vicious, malicious, and nasty."Never one to shy away from controversy, McCarthy's portrait of her generation had indeed drawn blood. But the brilliance of the novel has outlasted its first detonation and can now be enjoyed for its aphoritic, fearless dissection of the vanities of human endeavor.In an added bonus, the renowned essayist Vivian Gornick details in a moving introduction the importance of McCarthy's intellectual and artistic bravery, and how she influenced a generation of young writers and thinkers.

THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS follows a young bohemian intellectual, Margaret Sargent, through her experiences and lost loves in a time of coming war.Experimental in style, each section of the book describes separate episodes in the main character's life from different viewpoints. The novel begins with the young woman en route to New York, and goes on to paint a satirical portrait of the intellectuals of the time, then depicts the failure of a marriage and ends from the couch as she explores her identity through psychoanalysis.

THE GROUP follows eight graduates from exclusive Vassar College as they find love and heartbreak, forge careers, gossip and party in 1930s Manhattan.THE GROUP can be seen as the original SEX AND THE CITY. It is the first novel to frankly portray women's real lives, exploring subjects such as sex, contraception, motherhood and marriage.