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 June 21, 1912 in Seattle, Washington to Roy McCarthy and Ther

This article in full comprises 7220 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

First published 01 March 2008

Citation: Witters, Sean. "Mary McCarthy". The Literary Encyclopedia. 1 March 2008.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3028, accessed 9 February 2010.]