- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Classics (2 Mar 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 009928345X
- ISBN-13: 978-0099283454
- Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 1.7 x 19.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 455,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Memories Of A Catholic Girlhood (Vintage Classics)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Anita Brookner, Spectator
Superb...so heartbreaking that in comparison Jane Eyre seems to have got off lightly
Book Description
'Superb-so heartbreaking that in comparison Jane Eyre seems to have got off lightly' Anita Brookner, Spectator
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I recently had reason to look this book up on Amazon and was astonished to discover that it had only one, very negative, customer review.
I read the book 50 years ago when it was first published and thought it was brilliant. Everything I have heard or read about it since then leads me to believe that my opinion is widely shared and that it has become a classic of its genre.
McCarthy's experiences may not be unique but the way she describes them is.
I read the book 50 years ago when it was first published and thought it was brilliant. Everything I have heard or read about it since then leads me to believe that my opinion is widely shared and that it has become a classic of its genre.
McCarthy's experiences may not be unique but the way she describes them is.
4 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book was far to verbose & tedious to be enjoyable. It only covered about 9 years of Mary's life, and then more about her aging relatives than her, hardly a childhood. Anyone expecting scandalous or even startling revelations will be disappointed. Mary even says that many of her readers have contacted her to say their childhoods were just like hers, which comes as no surprise as it is very typical, mundane and possibly like hundreds of childhoods of this era, but unlike Mary they've not felt compelled to bore other's with it. Unless you want to impress your friends with a new diction then don't bother purchasing this book, and if curiosity has got the better of you, borrow it from the library.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Young Mary
24 Sep 2001
Format:Paperback
As an off-again, on-again admirer of Mary McCarthy, I sometimes wondered if she ever had a childhood or just appeared full-blown, rapier-witted and sword at her side. While never doubting her talent, reading her was frequently as pleasant as drinking a glass of vitriol.
Mary indeed had a childhood, and unusual it was. I am sure it marked her forever to lose both her parents within a week of one another to influenza at age six. To add to the horror, the family was traveling by train to start a new life in Minnesota. Mary, herself, was deathly ill with the virus, and that colored her impressions of the tragic event.
Some reviewers and the book jacket describe her childhood as "Dickensonian," I presume referring to Oliver Twist. I disagree, as Mary came from a well-to-do family that didn't lack for the material things of life. She lived with an aunt and uncle from her 6th to 11th year and was tremendously unhappy, claiming she didn't have enough to eat, was dressed in hand-me-downs and frequently beaten. Yet all photos of this time depict a well-dressed, well-fed child. At age 11, she was taken to live with her benevolent, wealthy grandparents in Seattle. From that time on, she received the kindest attention and was expensively educated. My doubts about those five early years are because Ms. McCarthy all her life was an implacable, unforgiving enemy when her feelings were aroused.
The memoir is beautifully written with sharp and fascinating characterizations of her family. She appends each chapter with an epilogue taking an adult's eye-view of her childhood impressions. It is most effective. You are constantly reaffirming her brilliance. Well worth reading.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A wonderful book
30 Dec 2000
Format:Paperback
Written long before the recent memoir craze, this book stands as one of the best of that genre. McCarthy looks back on an almost Dickensian childhood with wit and discernment. Perhaps most striking is the lack of defensiveness; writing of abuse suffered at the hands of a misguided great aunt and her sadistic husband, she traces the way it shaped her character but never uses it as an excuse. Nor is she more sparing of herself than of her relatives: she not only gives us a portrait of a realistically foolish, self-conscious adolescent Mary--recounting the sorts of youthful episodes many of us continue to blush over as we remember them in adulthood--but in notes appended to each chapter she deconstructs her own memories, noting where she has given in to the urge to dramatize or where her recollections conflict with those of others who were present. A wonderfully honest, bracing book, refreshing in its lack of grievance and its unostentatious, unsentimental good humor.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Poor Little Rich Girl
21 Dec 2001
Format:Paperback
I have always held a fascination for people who grew up with a real sense of religion that later fell away from the faith. I bought this book expecting something akin to the movies that are so prevalent nowadays about the catholic schoolboys smoking and getting caught by the nuns and hit with a ruler across the wrists. Instead, I was greeted with an amazing tale of Mary and her sad loss of her parents, pitiful existence with her aunt and uncle and twisted "saving" by her West Coast relatives.
The childhood she had was less than perfect, I agree, but the fact that she survived it and lived to create such a wonderful literary account of it almost makes me appreciative of her having to go through it. The chapter on her grandmother is so reminiscent of my own mother that I had to laugh out loud at times.
Well worth the read and the struggle through the many latin references and unfamiliar religious practices.
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