Mary McCarthy

by Mary McCarthy

  1984

  Awarded the National Medal for Literature at the New York Public Library on May 3. Hellman’s death on June 30 leads to the dropping of the lawsuit by the executors of her estate. The litigation had been expensive and stressful for McCarthy, who on July 16 is operated on, successfully, for water on the brain. On August 26 she receives the Edward MacDowell Medal for significant contribution to American culture.

  1985

  Occasional Prose, a collection of McCarthy’s critical writing, published in May. Her papers are acquired by the Vassar College library.

  1986

  Returns, after nearly forty years, to teaching at Bard College, on the Charles Stevenson Chair of Literature.

  1987

  How I Grew, a memoir of her early years, is published in the spring.

  1988

  Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and inducted in May. Carol Gelderman’s biography, Mary McCarthy: A Life, is published in August.

  1989

  Works on Intellectual Memoirs: New York, 1936–1938, which will be published posthumously. Dies in New York Hospital on October 25 of lung cancer; buried in Castine, Maine.

  Note on the Texts

  This volume contains four novels by Mary McCarthy, The Company She Keeps (1942), The Oasis (1949), The Groves of Academe (1952), and A Charmed Life (1955), as well as all eight of her short stories—four from the collection Cast a Cold Eye (1950) and four that were not collected by McCarthy during her lifetime. A companion Library of America volume collects the remainder of her fiction: the novels The Group, Birds of America, and Cannibals and Missionaries.

  In spring 1938, shortly after her marriage to Edmund Wilson and with his encouragement, McCarthy began writing short stories. Her first effort, “Cruel and Barbarous Treatment,” was published a year later in The Southern Review, and Maria Leiper, an editor at Simon and Schuster, read the story and signed McCarthy to a book contract. McCarthy suggested to Leiper that “Cruel and Barbarous Treatment” be gathered together with five other stories as “a novel in six parts,” to be called The Company She Keeps. Of the six stories in The Company She Keeps, two of the stories, “Rogue’s Gallery” and “Portrait of the Intellectual as a Yale Man,” appeared for the first time in the novel. The following list gives the first appearance of the other four:

  “Cruel and Barbarous Treatment,” The Southern Review, Spring 1939, pp. 713–25.

  “The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt,” Partisan Review, July–August 1941, pp. 279–88, 324–43.

  “The Genial Host,” Southern Review, Autumn 1941, pp. 280–97.

  “Ghostly Father, I Confess.” Harper’s Bazaar, April 1942, pp. 52ff.

  The Company She Keeps was published in May 1942 by Simon and Schuster. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in the preparation of a British edition, which was published in London by Nicholson and Watson in November 1942. The present volume uses the first American edition as its text.

  McCarthy began writing The Oasis in spring 1948, while she was teaching at Sarah Lawrence, and composed the bulk of it that summer in Cornwall, Connecticut. She submitted the completed manuscript in October to a contest for an unpublished short novel run by Cyril Connolly, the editor of the British magazine Horizon, to be judged by Connolly and Sonia Orwell, then Brownell. The Oasis won the contest, which came with a prize of £200, a dozen bottles of dry sherry, and publication in the February 1949 issue of Horizon. Its publication in Horizon attracted the attention of Bob Linscott at Random House, and it was published without changes in August 1949 by Random House with an introduction by Connolly. A British edition was published in May 1950 by William Heinemann Ltd., under the title A Source of Embarrassment. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in its preparation. The present volume uses the first American edition as its text.

  In 1949, McCarthy sold to Robert Giroux at Harcourt, Brace & World both a collection of stories, Cast a Cold Eye (see below), and a novel. She began writing the promised novel in 1950 after receiving a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation in 1949. On February 3, 1951, the first chapter appeared in The New Yorker under the title “Groves of Academe.” She finished drafting the novel late in the year and The Groves of Academe was published in February 1952 by Harcourt, Brace and Company with a revised first chapter. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in the preparation of a British edition, published in March 1953 by William Heinemann Ltd. The present volume uses the first American edition as its text.

  McCarthy began A Charmed Life in summer 1954 while living in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The first chapter was published in The New Yorker under the title “A Charmed Life” in its October 9, 1954, issue and was subsequently revised for its book publication. A Charmed Life was published in November 1955 by Harcourt, Brace and Company. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in the preparation of a British edition, published in April 1956 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. The present volume uses the first American edition as its text.

  Cast a Cold Eye was published in September 1950 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, collecting four stories in Part I as well as three childhood memoirs in Part II that were incorporated into McCarthy’s memoir, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, in 1957. The four stories from Part I were originally published in the following magazines:

  “The Weeds,” The New Yorker, September 16, 1944, pp. 25–43.

  “The Friend of the Family,” Town and Country, January 1947, pp. 101ff.

  “The Cicerone,” Partisan Review, February 1948, pp. 151–76.

  “The Old Men,” The New Yorker, May 13, 1950, pp. 28–34.

  A British edition was published in January 1952 by William Heinemann Ltd. McCarthy is not known to have been involved in its preparation. The present volume prints the four stories in Part I and uses the first American edition as its text.

  The following four stories were not collected by McCarthy. This list gives their first publication and the source of the text used in this volume:

  “The Company Is Not Responsible,” The New Yorker, April 22, 1944, pp. 77–80.

  “The Unspoiled Reaction,” Atlantic Monthly, March 1946, pp. 98–101.

  “The Appalachian Revolution,” The New Yorker, September 11, 1954, pp. 40–75.

  “The Hounds of Summer,” The New Yorker, September 14, 1963, pp. 47–117.

  This volume presents the texts of the original printings chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce features of their typographic design. The texts are presented without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features, and they are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number: 24.5–6, himself a small; 29.19, that. Mrs.; 36.36, Faithful; 93.20, Kunyoshi; 96.39, Latour; 101.34–35, La Pasionara; 112.14–15, artistocratic; 135.21, E.W. Sears; 159.5, himslf; 256.17, preferred——; 256.18, herself——; 271.39, lips, be; 283.16, point the; 286.37, Haines——; 286.40, grey——; 287.4, Haines’; 287.17, not he; 287.21, Breughelesque; 324.37, “ ‘Jocelyn; 326.28, said.; 383.29, sufference; 388.20, le; 403.5, some; 414.34, voice.; 450.5, réclamés; 452.1, Hirschfield’s; 498.40, warmly.; 505.15, caffein; 522.20, “Tartufe,”; 526.16, here,; 529.16, she; 530.1, said; 530.14, Young’s; 531.7, them. “I; 544.28, the the; 559.17, Schonberg,; 563.7, thoughfully,; 568.8, de la; 570.37, scarely; 580.8, gout,”; 583.25–26, sat to; 585.20, DeKooning; 587.28, to to; 604.14, ‘conceive,’ ”; 633.21–22, there no; 644.30, intersted; 646.25, qu’ on; 648.23, rougieriez; 649.33, had been; 668.10, prefunctory.; 675.22, adrenalins; 684.3, step-mothers; 713.23–24, unkown; 768.37, desspair.; 773.32, were; 794.35, Frances; 798.37, responsble; 809.32, recontrent; 844.3, deathy; 845.5, were; 908.31 (and passim), allemands,; 912.13, “Aidemoi,; 915.5, anglais,”; 923.24, establisments across.

  Notes

  In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of this volume (the
line count includes headings, but not rule lines). Often no note is made for material included in the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Biblical quotations and allusions are keyed to the King James Version; references to Shakespeare to The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). For further biographical background, references to other studies, and more detailed notes, see Doris Grumbach, The Company She Kept (New York: Coward-McCann, 1967); Carol Gelderman, Mary McCarthy: A Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988); Carol Brightman, Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1992); and Frances Kiernan, Seeing Mary Plain (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000); as well as Conversations with Mary McCarthy, ed. Carol Gelderman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991) and Sherli Evens Goldman, Mary McCarthy: A Bibliography (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968).

  THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS

  14.11–12 a Ramos gin fizz] Cocktail that originated in New Orleans in the 1880s.

  17.10–11 vie galante] French: “a liberated, adventurous life,” with connotations of sexual passion.

  20.36–37 Louis Napoleon] Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (1808–1873), president of the French Second Republic, 1848–52, and, as Napoléon III, ruler of the Second French Empire, 1852–70.

  20.39–40 several Bedlingtons, a cairn, two Kerry blues] Three varieties of terrier.

  25.2 the school of Boucher] François Boucher (1703–1770), French Rococo painter known for soft, extravagantly lush depictions of Eros.

  29.15 Keith-time] The Keith Time or Keith Circuit, prominent and high-class circuit of vaudeville theaters owned by B. F. Keith (1846–1914).

  31.32 Winchell’s column.] Snappily written, widely distributed, and occasionally cruel newspaper gossip column of Walter Winchell (1897–1972).

  36.36 Starr Faithfull case] The suspicious death by drowning of Starr Faithfull (1906–1931), a beautiful “society girl,” also informs John O’Hara’s novel Butterfield 8 (1934).

  41.40 faïence vase] A tin-glazed piece of earthenware.

  42.4–5 defended himself . . . Hippolytus] Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, resisted the seductive advances of his stepmother, Phaedra.

  42.40 Mickey Finn] A drink spiked with a drug in order to incapacitate the drinker.

  44.10–11 Maillard’s or Schrafft’s] Maillard’s, a Manhattan restaurant that had made its original reputation with a clientele of upscale women; the Schrafft’s restaurants, which operated for decades in Manhattan, were described in a 2008 article in The New York Times: “The chain sought associations with the well-to-do, or at least comfortable, and the typical restaurant was a relaxed white-tablecloth retreat from the midday hustle of the city.”

  44.27 Heian period] Period of Japanese history spanning 794 to 1185, named for the capital, Heian-kyo, what is now the city of Kyoto.

  48.26 Japanese cloisonné enamels] Decorative art and jewelry made by filling with enamel small compartments that have been formed from metal filaments.

  48.36 Franz Joseph] Emperor of Austria (1830–1916) who reigned from 1848 to 1916.

  48.37 Pisanello medallions of the Este family] Pisanello (c. 1395–1455), Italian artist famed for making portrait medallions; the House of Este is a European noble family with branches in Italy, Austria, Britain and Germany.

  48.38 prie-dieu] An item of furniture, with a resting-place for one’s knees and elbows, to be used while praying.

  50.1 Hearst] William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951), American newspaper magnate; extravagant collector of art and antique furniture.

  50.3 Romanoff collection] A portion of the Russian crown jewels were sold at auction by the Soviet government in 1927. Perhaps a reference to the American businessman Armand Hammer (1898–1990), who bought Romanov jewels in the USSR and sold them in New York City.

  54.30 Vincent Sheean’s Personal History] Memoir by the American foreign correspondent (1899–1975), published in 1935 and praised by McCarthy in The Nation.

  57.8–9 Hervey Allen or Arthur Brisbane or Westbrook Pegler] Allen, American historical novelist (1889–1949), author of Anthony Adverse (1933); Brisbane, American newspaper editor and columnist (1864–1936); and Pegler, American newspaper columnist (1894–1969) fiercely opposed to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.

  58.35 White Rock] White Rock Beverages, a soft-drink company.

  61.10–12 Landon . . . Roosevelt] In November 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won a landslide re-election over the Republican candidate, Kansas governor Alfred M. Landon (1887–1987).

  61.16–17 CIO strikes . . . Lewis] John L. Lewis (1880–1969), aggressive president of the United Mine Workers, 1920–60, and president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 1935–40.

  61.21 Norman Thomas!] Thomas (1884–1969) was Socialist Party candidate for president in six elections from 1928 to 1948.

  61.37 Mr. Morgan’s war] Refers to the belief that American involvement in World War I was brought about by the banker J. P. Morgan Jr. (1867–1943) in order to protect and profit from his own financial interests, especially those in Britain.

  62.38 Sherwood Anderson character] Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941), American novelist and short story writer best known for Winesburg, Ohio (1919), often dealt with characters whose yearnings were thwarted by their temperaments and small-town circumstances.

  70.7–9 Chaucer, . . . wel at ese.”] Troilus and Criseyde, Book II, line 750.

  79.5–6 Del Monte] Golf course at Pebble Beach, California, open since 1897.

  80.25–26 the war in Spain] The Spanish Civil War (1936–39), between the Spanish Republicans and the right-wing Nationalists, which resulted in the demise of the Second Spanish Republic and a thirty-six-year-long fascist dictatorship by Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Left-leaning and Communist literary intellectuals from the U.S. and Europe rallied passionately to the doomed cause of the Republic and eventually saw the conflict as a kind of small-scale preview of World War II, in which the forces of democracy and communism allied against fascism.

  80.28–29 die for the Republicans at the Alcazar] The Alcázar, an ancient palace fortress in Toledo, was held by the Spanish Nationalists and unsuccessfully besieged from July to September 1936 by the opposing Republican forces. Their defeat provided Franco with a symbolic victory.

  81.39–40 Longchamps or the Algonquin] Longchamps was a chain of smartly decorated Manhattan restaurants; the Algonquin Hotel, on West 44th St., was famous for its “Round Table” of writers, wits, and show-business personalities who regularly lunched there.

  82.1 Marie Laurencin look] Laurencin (1885–1956) was a French avant-garde painter associated with the Cubist movement; known for a delicate pastel style.

  82.4 Ponce de Leon] Spanish explorer (1460–1521) who, according to legend, searched in Florida for the Fountain of Youth.

  82.6 Brussels carpet] Machine-made wool carpet with a heavy pile.

  82.7–8 Marmon roadster] Car produced by the Marmon Motor Car Company, located in Indianapolis, which operated from 1902 to 1933. (McCarthy lost her virginity in a Marmon roadster in the fall of 1926.)

  82.18–19 Hepplewhite chairs] Furniture in the style of George Hepplewhite (c. 1727–1786), British cabinetmaker whose chairs were known for their slender wooden arms and legs and shield-design backs.

  84.27 tout comprendre, c’est tout aimer] French: To understand all is to love all. A less familiar variant of “tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner” (to understand all is to forgive all).

  85.34–35 Marianna . . . Isabella’s name!] After being jilted by Angelo in Measure for Measure, Act IV, scene i, Mariana sleeps with him, knowing that in the dark he believes her to be Isabella.

  91.33 Mennen’s] The Mennen Company, since the 1870s, had been the manufacturer of popular men’s toiletries.

  93.19 monkscloth] Heavy, loosely woven cotton fabric often used in bedspreads.

&
nbsp; 93.20 Kunyoshi and Reginald Marsh] Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889–1953), Japanese-American painter and printmaker; Reginald Marsh (1898–1954), American painter known for his New York City subject matter.

  93.20–21 George Grosz . . . Rivera] George Grosz (1893–1959), German artist famous for depictions of Berlin during the Weimar Republic; Diego Rivera (1886–1957), Mexican painter best known for his murals.

  95.37 Archipenko and Harold Cash] Alexander Archipenko (1887–1964) and Harold Cash (1895–1977), American sculptors.

  96.21 Moscow trials] Three show trials conducted in the USSR from August 1936 to March 1938. The defendants, who included many of Stalin’s political rivals from the 1920s, were falsely accused of espionage, treason, and plotting with the exiled Leon Trotsky.

  97.4 George Arliss] English stage and film actor (1868–1946) who starred in The House of Rothschild, 1934 film about the European banking family who owned the Château Lafite Rothschild vineyard.

  101.30 like Lady Chatterley] Constance Chatterley, the married, sexually frustrated heroine of D. H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928); it is actually a gamekeeper with whom she has an affair.

  101.34–35 La Pasionaria] Nickname of Dolores Ibárruri (1895–1989), Communist orator and supporter of the Spanish Second Republic, famous for her cry of “No Pasarán!” (“They shall not pass!”) directed against Franco’s forces during the 1936 Battle for Madrid.

  102.3 Andres Nin] Spanish Communist (1892–1937) and a founder of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), who was killed by Stalinist agents of the NKVD, the Soviet state security organization, as the USSR asserted doctrinaire Communist control over the government of the Spanish Republic. The stories of Nin and the POUM are most famously recounted in George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia (1938). McCarthy was friends with Orwell’s widow, Sonia, for many years.