‘Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant’ COSMOPOLITAN
‘A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack’ SARAH WATERS
‘Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining’ SUNDAY TIMES
Not one of them, if she could help it, was going to marry a broker or a banker or a cold-fish corporation lawyer. . .
New York, 1930. Eight Vassar graduates meet in New York to attend the wedding of one of their friends – and reconvene seven years later at her funeral. Young and fearless, they vow not to become stuffy and frightened like their parents, but to lead fulfilling, emancipated lives. But which of them will achieve that dream – and at what cost?
Ground-breaking in its fearless portrayal of female friendship, sex and the struggle to have it all, The Group was a revelation, a scandal, and an instant bestseller.
‘McCarthy’s characters confront many of the same issues as their modern counterparts: sex and contraception, career and marriage, love and lust, fidelity to one’s husband versus loyalty to one’s friends and the attempt to carve out a place for oneself unconstrained by the gender limitations of previous generations. Its continuing relevance is one of the book’s most extraordinary attributes’ ELIZABETH DAY, GUARDIAN
‘A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack’ SARAH WATERS
‘Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining’ SUNDAY TIMES
Not one of them, if she could help it, was going to marry a broker or a banker or a cold-fish corporation lawyer. . .
New York, 1930. Eight Vassar graduates meet in New York to attend the wedding of one of their friends – and reconvene seven years later at her funeral. Young and fearless, they vow not to become stuffy and frightened like their parents, but to lead fulfilling, emancipated lives. But which of them will achieve that dream – and at what cost?
Ground-breaking in its fearless portrayal of female friendship, sex and the struggle to have it all, The Group was a revelation, a scandal, and an instant bestseller.
‘McCarthy’s characters confront many of the same issues as their modern counterparts: sex and contraception, career and marriage, love and lust, fidelity to one’s husband versus loyalty to one’s friends and the attempt to carve out a place for oneself unconstrained by the gender limitations of previous generations. Its continuing relevance is one of the book’s most extraordinary attributes’ ELIZABETH DAY, GUARDIAN
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Reviews
Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant
She is a sparkler, a very funny, very savage moralist, and a brilliant mimic
This is the book which has aroused considerable advance speculation and well it might; it has a tremendous reader recognition . . . there cannot be much doubt that Mary McCarthy is an exceptional social satirist, with a jackdaw eye and an infallible ear
Shocking, titillating, and acid-laced . . . the book still dazzles as a generational portrait, falters as fiction, and blighted McCarthy's life
Scalpel-keen prose, honed on ruthless wit and insight
A woman of intellect and style
Absorbing, funny, painful . . . I consider it a masterpiece
A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack
Her greatest novel . . . marvellous . . . a prophetic book which set the scene . . . for the novels of protest and liberation in the next decade
Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining
Few works of literature can genuinely be termed "ahead of their time"
One of my favourite books ever
Feels like discovering a thrilling secret. Its prose shows a master stylist at work, its aesthetics are striking - all ivory-tipped cigarettes, hand-pureed pâté, Vassar socialists in dungarees - and it has a surprise queer romance that twists the whole narrative into new shape. It's my new standard for a summer read: lavish, hilarious, smart and mean, like a glamorous friend you're torn between fearing and crushing on
McCarthy's dissection of this disparate group - highly educated but powerless in a world of men - is witty and merciless but tinged with sadness.
McCarthy's characters confront many of the same issues as their modern counterparts: sex and contraception, career and marriage, love and lust, fidelity to one's husband versus loyalty to one's friends and the attempt to carve out a place for oneself unconstrained by the gender limitations of previous generations. Its continuing relevance is one of the book's most extraordinary attributes
