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Original Essays | November 9, 2009

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Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy

by Fran Kiernan

Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy Cover

ISBN13: 9780393038019
ISBN10: 0393038017
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
All Product Details

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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Beautiful and reckless, supremely quick and endlessly maddening, Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) never failed to leave an impression. From her Partisan Review days as the embattled "Dark Lady of American letters" to her stormy marriage to (and even stormier divorce from) critic Edmund Wilson to her huge but ambiguous success with her best-selling novel The Group to her epic libel battle with Lillian Hellman, she brought an almost nineteenth-century scope and drama to her emblematic twentieth-century life. Time called her "quite possibly the cleverest woman America has ever produced," and she moved in a circle of the most intellectually combative and sharpest-tongued Americans of this century — all of whom had plenty to say (some of it complimentary, some distinctly not) about this vibrant woman in their midst. People are still talking, and Fran Kiernan has interviewed dozens of good friends, former lovers, literary and political comrades-in-arms, awestruck admirers, amused observers, and bitter adversaries — to produce a biography rich in delicious gossip, ironic judgment, and eloquent testimony.

Book News Annotation:

Kiernan (former fiction editor, The New Yorker) makes use of interviews with McCarthy's lovers, friends, family, co-workers, casual acquaintances, and fellow writers, many of the latter constituting a pantheon of American arts and letters. Somewhere between scholarly (well-researched and cited) and popular biography (loads of gossip), Kiernan's study does not try for objectivity, but instead, a portrait that might have, she says, made McCarthy "crinkle her eyes and grin." Interviews are supported with McCarthy's archived papers at Vassar and other archives, including Elizabeth Bishop's at Vassar and Robert Lowell's at Harvard.
Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Synopsis:

At last, a biography rich in delicious gossip, ironic judgment, and eloquent testimony of Mary McCarthy, one of the most controversial American intellectuals of this century. of photos.

Description:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 811-814) and index.

Product Details

ISBN:
9780393038019
Subtitle:
A Life of Mary McCarthy
Author:
Kiernan, Frances
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Location:
New York :
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Biography
Subject:
Women
Subject:
Historical - U.S.
Subject:
20th century
Subject:
Authors, American
Subject:
Mccarthy, mary therese, 1912-1989
Edition Description:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Series Volume:
no. 962
Publication Date:
March 2000
Binding:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Yes
Pages:
845
Dimensions:
9.48x6.45x1.80 in. 2.89 lbs.

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