Mary McCarthy emerged out of the “New York intellectual” scene of the 1930s to become a mainstay of the literary culture of the Cold War era. From her first novel to her posthumous memoir, McCarthy explored perception, intimacy, social dynamics, gender roles, ideology, and culture with cutting wit, deliberate prose, and terrible honesty. While the defining feature of McCarthy’s life might have been her commitment to speaking and writing “on the contrary”, she was not content to simply celebrate dissidence, using her writing, instead, to study the way public and private dissent conditions the individual's identity.
Mary Therese McCarthy was born 21 June 1912 in Seattle, Washington to Roy McCarthy and Therese “Tess” Preston. Roy, the son of a wealthy Minneapolis grain merchant, finished law school at thirty-five, but, plagued by a bad heart and...
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Citation: Witters, Sean. "Mary McCarthy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 March 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3028, accessed 05 December 2025.]
