ABSTRACT

Mary McCarthy is known as much for her life as for her writing. Although some of her fiction was considered scandalous and The Group (1963) became a bestseller, she is remembered more for her autobiographies and her criticism than for her fiction. However, the distinction between these genres is particularly fuzzy in the case of McCarthy. In writing about these intimate relationships she has often revealed publicly things many thought should be left private.1 Much of her fiction, especially her early fiction, such as In the Company She Keeps (1942), A Charmed Life (1955), and even The Group, bears a striking resemblance to elements of her life. As she told Elizabeth Neibuhr in an interview for The Paris Review, what she tries to do is take “real plums” from her life and place them in “imaginary cake.”2 Many of these plums are her exhusbands: McCarthy was divorced three times, providing juicy ingredients for her “cake.” In fact, McCarthy’s frank use of these intimate relationships in her fiction is characteristic of her work and contributes to her reputation as a scandalous writer.