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The Company She Keeps (Virago Modern Classics) [Kindle Edition]

Mary McCarthy (Author), Paula McLain (Introduction)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews) |
Print List Price: £7.99
Kindle Price: £4.49 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Review

A consummate piece of work (Norman Mailer )

McCarthy exposes the complex psychological workings of a brilliant, tortured and manipulative mind . . . Timeless, brilliant and frighteningly insightful (Daily Mail )

McCarthy may be best known for The Group but her debut novel made nearly as much of a splash when [first] published in 1942 . . . A jagged diamond of a book, the multifaceted parts giving a glimpse of a brilliant but fractured whole (Observer )

Book Description

Published in 1942, Mary McCarthy's first novel creates a fascinating portrait of a 1930s New York social circle.
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Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 385 KB
  • Print Length: 254 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0156200856
  • Publisher: Hachette Digital (3 Nov 2011)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.ą r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B005O6YMRC
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #31,881 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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More About the Author

Mary McCarthy
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Synopsis 27 Aug 2008
Format:Paperback
After a Reno divorce Margaret Sargent, an attractive and intelligent girl, finds herself floundering in a world of casual affairs and squalid intimacies. She is in full revolt against society. But her new Bohemian life never achieves her own approval. The agony of repeated rejection and despair finally forces a strict reckoning on this lost, likeable figure
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Bohemian Girl 16 Mar 2012
Format:Paperback
In her interesting and helpful introduction to this novel Paula McLain writes, "I don't believe any of her (later) efforts matched the audacity, aplomb, and sheer literary merit of The Company She Keeps." I have not read enough of Mary McCarthy to be able to endorse this opinion but I certainly do not find it surprising. The courage, self-awareness and honesty of the then young author are very impressive.
The six stories which combine to form the structure of the novel reveal incidents in the early life of its heroine, Margaret Sargent, who defines herself as a bohemian and whose personality and emotions are brought into sharp focus. Her various relationships and encounters with men, are observed with forensic acuity, and described with wit and an alarmingly clear perception. They accumulate to give a disturbing picture of this modern young American. It seems that much is based on Mary McCarthy's own early experiences. The style, almost that of a dispassionate onlooker, maintains a distance and created a sense of objectivity. The novel captures significant episodes and allows the reader to determine the level of intensity. The heroine appears as an individual, rather than any kind of stereotype. Meg is determined, witty, politically involved, and an accomplished writer. Rather like her creator in fact!
But a far more sinister McCarthy was waiting in the wings and the reactionary United States of Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road was two decades away. Certain freedoms in behaviour may be more generally acceptable nowadays but I fear that freedom of thought is still at a premium. Conventions differ and behaviour that may have once seemed shocking is now perhaps commonplace. But the forces of reaction and repression are never very far away!
This very readable, often amusing, novel was initially published at the onset of the Second World War and may now seem to be rather dated. But it certainly has style!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:  3 reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Bohemian Life 13 Feb 2000
By frumiousb - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
The Company She Keeps was Mary McCarthy's first novel (as noted above) and follows the life of Margaret Sargent from her first divorce through the life of a gay divorcee to a strained remarriage. Margaret tries to live the life of a twenties heroine (her ideas of the free life very reminiscent of Fitzgerald) but the context of this time had completely irrevocably changed.

The book covers the prewar period with the infighting on the left and the politics of Trotsky and Spain, the coming war and sexual freedom. McCarthy writes with incision and great wisdom, mocking, mourning, and loving her characters all at the same time.

The only problem with the book is that it was originally not a book at all, but several short stories on a theme. As such, it hangs together remarkably well, but before I knew that it had been short stories first I was already puzzled by some of the abrupt jumps and breaks.

This is the first Mary McCarthy I've read, but I will certainly be reading more. Highly recommended.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
An Interesting Read 30 Dec 2003
By William Tegner - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is Mary McCarthy's first book, and consists of six different exerts, some of which appear to have appeared previously in American magazines. The six parts all feature the same young woman, Margaret Sargent, and must be to some extent autobiographical. The book does not have the by now traditional disclaimer about the characters being imaginary, so I imagine that many of the males in it are based on true people as well.

The chapters and characters in the book (except for Miss Sargent) are all very different. They draw on the author's mixed Protestant, Catholic and Jewish descent. They are also a fascinating "period piece" about the USA just before the Second World War, and before another McCarthy jumped down on Marxists and Communists. The book is well written, if somewhat verbose by modern standards, and the characters well drawn. The final chapter, "Ghostly Father, I Confess" is a bit too self analytical and involved, perhaps, but interesting none the less.

In summary, the book is worth reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
McCarthy's first book and one of her best 15 July 2006
By Bomojaz - Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
The book consists of six somewhat lengthy "episodes" dealing with a young woman in the 1930s who runs with a very intellectual and bohemian crowd. All of the episodes are interesting and well told, but the best is "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt." It is so good that it alone is worth the cost of the book. It describes an encounter between the young woman and a young man on a train, in which they end up spending the night together. The perspective is told from the woman's viewpoint and McCarthy's insights are incredibly honest, regardless the consequences. Her tone is assured and rock steady; it's a brilliant piece of modern realistic fiction. The whole book is fascinating and enlightening, one of McCarthy's best.
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