McCarthy, Mary
McCarthy, Mary ( 1912 – 89 ),novelist, short story writer, and critic, born in Seattle and orphaned at the age of 6. She was raised by an aunt and uncle and two sets of grandparents of Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant backgrounds, a mixture that she describes in Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood ( 1957 ). After graduating from Vassar she worked as a drama critic, then taught for some years at Bard College and Sarah Lawrence College, experiences she used in her satirical campus novel The Groves of Academe (NY 1952 , London 1953 ), which describes the political persecutions of the McCarthy period. Her first novel, The Company She Keeps ( 1942 ), is a portrait of a bohemian intellectual, and The Oasis ( 1949 , London 1950 , as A Source of Embarrassment) describes the failure of a New England utopia. Cast a Cold Eye ( 1950 , short stories) and A Charmed Life ( 1955 , novel) were...
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