168. Mary McCarthy’s The Group Turns 60

KIM ASKEW: Hi everyone. Before we dive into today's episode, we want to let you know, this will be our final new episode for 2023. We'll be taking a brief hiatus to enjoy the holidays with our families and we'll be back with more brand new episodes in late January.

AMY HELMES: Until then, we'll be airing encore presentations of some of our favorite past episodes starting next week. This little break will also be a terrific time for you to catch up on back episodes from the past three years. In fact, it's going to be your last opportunity to enjoy free and unlimited access to our mini episodes. And really, Kim, if you think about it, “mini” is kind of a misnomer, because most of these episodes run about 20 minutes long. They're not too mini.

KIM: No, no. I like to think of them more as bonus episodes. And so to that end, soon after we return from hiatus, these episodes will be available only with a Lost Ladies of Lit Patreon subscription for as little as six dollars per month. You always hear things like "the price of a latte!" For the price of a latte! For the low, low price of a latte, you can get…” [laughs] Yeah, we're diving into Patreon, people. Some of our listeners have been suggesting this for a while and we finally got around to doing it.

AMY: And don't worry, we are committed to keeping our full-length episodes on forgotten women writers free and available for all to enjoy. That's a priority for us. But if you believe there's value in what we do, we hope that you'll consider supporting our work in the new year, because believe it or not, it actually does cost money to produce this podcast. I know a lot of our listeners are writers and college professors. A subscription is probably going to be a tax write off for you, so think about it that way. So we're gonna have more info for y'all at the start of the new year on how you can sign up. We'll direct you to our Patreon link also in our show notes if you want to get a head start on that or be put on the waitlist for when that's all starting. 

KIM: Amy and I tend to let our hair down a bit more in our bonus episodes. We have a lot of fun with them, they're usually good for some laughs, so we hope you continue to tune in for those. Consider it a small but meaningful way that you can be part of our efforts to remind the world of all the great women writers people should be reading.

AMY: It's been amazing to spread the word about lost ladies of lit, and we look forward to introducing you to many more in the new year.

KIM: So without further ado, here's today's episode.

AMY: Welcome to Lost Ladies of Lit, the podcast dedicated to dusting off forgotten women writers. I'm Amy Helmes, here with my cohost, Kim Askew.

KIM: Hey, everyone. Listeners, if you've followed this podcast long enough, you know that Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City and the television show it spawned get mentioned a lot on this podcast. I would say almost to a nauseating degree. I didn't even really watch the show when it was on, as often as it comes up here, and not that there's anything wrong with it, but you know, I just didn't.

AMY: I know it's a little embarrassing. I feel like maybe we need to issue a moratorium on that reference. But it is often our go-to comparison when we're trying to highlight a book's frank discussions about sex or novels about women friendships or independent young working women in the city. I'm thinking particularly of New York City, so books like Rona Jaffe's The Best of Everything, Miriam Karpolov's Diary of a Lonely Girl, and Ursula Parrott's Ex Wife. We've done previous episodes on those, and I think Sex and the City has come up in all of those.

KIM: Yeah, that's right. And when it comes to scintillating "girls about town" sort of books, it's an easy touchstone to reference. Everyone gets it, even if you haven't watched it. And in fact, The book we'll be talking about today directly inspired Candace Bushnell to write Sex and the City, so we kind of have to mention it this time.

AMY: Yeah, but I'm going to start referring to it by other names so maybe like Fornication in the Metropolis or Carnal Activity in an Urban Center. Let's try to put new spins on the title.

KIM: We're going to work on that, guys. I like that idea.

AMY: Um, But yeah, so apparently Sex and the City was born after Bushnell's editor suggested, "Hey, why don't you write a modern day version of Mary McCarthy's The Group?"

KIM: Ka-ching! And the money started pouring in.

AMY: Yeah, yeah, brilliant idea. So I suspect a lot of you out there, you're all remarkably well read people, have already... read The Group, but then there might be others listening who are thinking, "What's The Group?" Or maybe like Kim and I, you sort of knew of it, but you had never actually read it.

KIM: Yeah. Amy, you and I both independently had this book on our radar a few months ago as something we wanted to read, not necessarily for the podcast, but when we found out we were both reading it, we decided we had to discuss it, especially since this past August, it actually marked the 60th anniversary of the novel.

AMY: Yeah. So let's dive in, or as we like to say, let's raid the stacks and get started.

[intro music plays]

KIM: Okay. So full disclosure listeners, Amy and I initially planned this as a mini episode. We don't have a guest on today helping us out.

AMY: It's not a mini episode anymore. It's a bonus episode. 

KIM: It's a bonus episode. That's right. Bonus.

AMY: Yeah, but today, like Kim said, it's just going to be the two of us giving you our non-expert opinions. That said, let's talk about the history of this novel. It's probably Mary McCarthy's best known work. When it was published in 1963, it was pretty much an instant hit. It remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for two years, and it got banned in Australia, Ireland, and Italy because of its frank discussion topics, which range from sex and contraception to lesbianism and mental illness. So the story of the book follows eight friends over the course of seven years following their graduation from Vassar College in 1933. McCarthy, herself, graduated from Vassar in 1933. So in some respects, the book is autobiographical based on herself and her friends that she knew from college. So Kim, I didn't know what the Vassar Daisy Chain was until I read this book. I had never heard of it.

KIM: Right. I had not heard of the Daisy Chain either. Do you want to tell our listeners what it is exactly?

AMY: Sure. So I found a little bit of info about it on the Vassar Encyclopedia online. That's a thing. So I'll try to sum it up. It's a longstanding tradition at the school. Every year a group of sophomores are chosen for their leadership skills, their class spirit, their volunteerism, you know, they're chosen by a committee of seniors to carry a 150-foot chain of daisies and laurel, aka "the daisy chain" at the commencement ceremony for that year. So to serve as a "daisy" as a sophomore is a great honor. And this is a tradition of Vassar that extends back to the late 1800s. In fact, they got all the daisies in the first place because the quad on campus used to be a large daisy field, so they would just get the flowers there and make them into the chain. And the chain itself has become very elaborate and actually kind of heavy, from my understanding, so you do need a lot of girls to hoist this thing at the commencement. So originally the daisies were chosen for both their contribution to college life as well as their attractiveness. This didn't sit well with everyone, naturally, so eventually they correctly phased out the beauty contest aspect of it.

KIM: It kind of sounds like a homecoming court. I mean, maybe that's changed these days too, but I remember it was sort of a popularity contest, but physical attractiveness was definitely though, maybe not stated.

AMY: Yeah, yeah.

KIM: So the characters in this book, much like the real life young women chosen for this daisy chain, Amy told us about, they are considered to be the cream of the Vassar crop. And that sets the stage to find out what becomes of these women in the group as their lives progress beyond graduation. 

AMY: And it seems like each girl in this novel almost, in some ways, seems to represent one facet of a prism of female experience as a young adult, right? I think some of the characters are better fleshed-out than others, but I'm just going to rattle off the names of the core eight girls and then talk a little bit about each. Um, first we have Kay, who I kind of think of as almost like the main character in some ways. All the girls are attending her wedding at the start of the book. She's the first to get married. She is interested in theater and directing, which is something that she had done at Vassar, but she ends up having to work at Macy's to support herself and her playwright young husband. So she feels kind of thwarted in her ambitions. The marriage is rocky from the start and as that relationship devolves her husband later has her committed to a psych ward for hysteria. So that's Kay. Then we have Dottie. She comes from an upright Boston family. She's the one who we get to sort of see her sexual awakening in the novel.

KIM: Yeah, we're going to talk about that.

AMY: The “naughty part,” I guess, part of the reason it got banned in those other countries. Um, we have another character, Priss. She's sweet and timid. I kind of think of her as like the Beth March of The Group. Would you say that?

KIM: Yeah, yeah, I'd say that's right. She's a bit of a pushover almost. 

AMY: Yeah, I think so. We get to see her introduction to motherhood in the book, which is really fascinating. Then there's Lakey. That is the nickname for Eleanor Eastlake. She is gorgeous, dripping with confidence, very worldly. She's sort of the envy of all the other girls, and we do come to discover she is a lesbian. Uh, she's played in the film adaptation of this book by Candace Bergen, who I think everybody knows. Then moving on, Polly. She is a Midwestern girl. Her family had been hard hit in the Depression, so she actually attended Vassar as a scholarship student, but she's very kind hearted, she sort of takes on strays in her life. She's friends with, like, her elderly neighbors. She, in the book, has an affair with a married man and, if I remember correctly, she's kind of one of the more politically-minded, is that right, Kim?

KIM: Yeah, I think so. Honestly, I get them confused.

AMY: Some of the political stuff I would just like glaze over because it's actually a very long book. So when I would get to like Trotskyism I would suddenly be like "doo doo doo doo doo." 

KIM: They have a lot of debates about politics. 

AMY: Yeah. Um, okay next is Helena, she is a preschool teacher after college. I'd say she's one of the more well adjusted in The Group. She keeps the class notes on everyone, so she's sort of updating everyone as the years pass about who got married, who had babies, you know, what happened to everybody. I see her in some ways as kind of the glue of The Group, because she's in touch with everyone. Okay, so then, next we have Pokey. That's such a funny name. 

KIM: Very much. 

AMY: She is actually an heiress. She literally grew up with a butler, but unlike Lakey she's not as glamorous. She's kind of the pudgy one of The Group.

KIM: She's studying to be a vet and she commutes by plane just because her dad gave her a plane. So she got her pilot's license so she could commute to her Cornell classes. She's going to Cornell for grad school. Yeah.

AMY: Yeah. Um, and then last but not least, we have Libby, who works in publishing after college. She has literary ambitions. In the film, she is played by Jessica Walter, who you might know if you watched Arrested Development. And her attitude, especially in the movie, it reminds me a little bit of Samantha from Sex and the City. Shoot! I said it. 

KIM: Oh, no. Drink, drink! Drinking game! 

AMY: Um, yeah. So, Libby is not quite, or actually she's not at all as sexually brazen as Samantha, but she does sort of say what's on her mind in the group. Maybe, you know, a little too brazen at times. Um, and then, so that's the eight girls, but then also McCarthy throws in random people that you're like, “Wait, who's this?” So there's Noreen who went to Vassar but she was never officially a member of The Group in college. And she is a hot mess. She's sleeping with one of the other girls' husbands. She's portrayed as a negligent mother, kind of dirty. 

KIM: Yeah, she's definitely an outsider to the group. They look down on her.

AMY: Yes. So Kim, of all those that I just mentioned, did you have a favorite?

KIM: So I think Polly was maybe my favorite, but also she kind of rounds out the book at the end. So maybe that's why I think of her as like a more strongly developed character maybe. But all the characters, I enjoyed aspects of each of them. I feel like they sort of all come together and their personalities play off each other. You almost can't have one standalone, at least the way they're developed in the book. Um, but Dottie's experience is really super poignant, and I found her character really interesting and her story unforgettable too. What about you? 

AMY: Yeah, I ironically liked Lakey the best. As soon as she came on the scene at the wedding at the beginning of the book, I was like, "Who's this? I like her." So cool. And then…

KIM: There's not enough of her. 

AMY: There's not enough Lakey! Lakey goes off to Europe for much of the book and then she returns at the end. But the whole time I was reading the book, I was like, " When are we going to return to Lakey?" 

KIM: Yeah. Speaking of Little Women, like you did earlier, she's like the Amy; the lesbian Amy. 

AMY: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. She's just so confident. So yeah, I was disappointed that there wasn't more Lakey. 

KIM: I could have read a whole book on Lakey. 

AMY: But we should talk about the fact that McCarthy based all these characters off real friends of hers from Vassar, because they took it as a betrayal of sorts. They did not like the fact that they inspired this book. 

KIM: I could totally see that. I mean, she's a writer, so I think we even had a whole episode on this, but we talked about how writers have kind of the right to sort of take their life, I guess, to a certain extent in their fiction, but I could see, based on how the characters are portrayed, there's definitely negative aspects to them. Um, it's almost like she's gossiping in a way if she's using her friends' personalities in her portrayal and it makes me think of Donna Tartt and what she used for The Secret History, you know? People's actual personalities from Bennington.

AMY: Yeah, you have to be willing to accept the consequences. People might be ticked at you, and these women were ticked. I was thinking this morning, like, “Would I have wanted Mary McCarthy to do a send up of me?” And I think no. She shines a light on maybe parts of a person that the person themselves would not even want to know about. It is satirical at times. 

KIM: But I'd say, you know, and maybe this is getting too far ahead, but I'd say it's all for the greater good, though, because stepping back and looking at the novel and looking at what this Vassar education... what that life was like. It's almost like it was idyllic while they were in school. They were given all these ideas. They were so well read. They had politics. They had an idea of how they wanted to help the world. It's all about self fulfillment and that's how you're going to help the world. And then they get out into the world and they're actually interacting at careers and marriages and everything, and it's almost a hindrance to them. And I think it's really interesting that she shows how society takes these women who were ready for everything, like The Best of Everything idea too, that's not how it ends up working out.

AMY: Yeah, yeah, and the more I looked into Mary McCarthy's life as we were getting ready for this. episode, I did realize there's a lot of Mary McCarthy in all of these different girls in the book. She had said, you know, these characters are composites. And I would say it's a composite of her also in a lot of the different characters. I can see her in all of these girls in some respects, including the fact that, uh, McCarthy said that her second husband had had her committed for hysteria, much like Kay in the book, you know? So, you can take bits and pieces.

KIM: Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, there's so many things in the book that you could see as gossip. And they, the characters do gossip about each other in the book. So you could see how it was probably like that in real life among these friends as they're staying in touch after college. That's crazy that McCarthy was also committed for hysteria by her husband, because that is an unforgettable part of the book,

AMY: Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, so there are other unforgettable parts of the book. We mentioned that this was considered so scandalous at the time, so let's talk about that. I was personally expecting it to be far juicier on the sex front than it was, given what I thought I knew about it going into it.

KIM: Yeah, I feel the same. I mean, Dottie losing her virginity, it was quite descriptive, but it's nothing compared to how, you know, from the 70s onward, the way sex has been talked about, it definitely feels dated in that way.

AMY: Yeah, and it was really like that "Dottie" moment, and then you didn't return to a ton of sex in the rest of the book, right? 

KIM: No, I don't think so. No.

AMY: It was just one portion. But yeah, for sure, this sex scene is kind of unforgettable. She walks the reader through it, step by step. But to me, that makes it almost seem more like an instructional manual, you know, more than something salacious. Uh, it felt like being in sex ed class or something like, okay, this is what will happen and this is what you should expect and it's going to feel like this.

KIM: And you have to wonder if she was kind of trying to give that information almost into the public service. I don't know.

AMY: Yeah, it felt like it to me, definitely. You'd think, Oh, girls are reading this book secretly undercover because it's so naughty. No, I think girls are reading this secretly undercover because they're getting a lot of important information from this book that they wouldn't get anywhere else. 

KIM: Yeah, including, uh, Dottie goes to the gynecologist to get birth control, and it's very nerve-wracking for her, you know, not wanting anyone to see or know who you are and like, all the emotion about this, um, visit to the gynecologist. So do you want to read an excerpt from that section just so people can hear what we're talking about?

AMY: Yes, I do. And I actually want to back up a little bit to the morning after she has been deflowered by this guy, an artist who's… 

KIM: Daisy chain... Deflowered. Sorry. 

AMY: We gotta get that, pun in there. Um, so this guy, his name is Dick. He's an artist. He's very…

KIM: Sorry, all the, all the puns. [laughing]

AMY: I know lots of puns going on, but yeah, he's very no-nonsense about what he wants out of this interaction. He does not want a relationship. He just is interested in casual sex. And so he says to her the next morning. Actually, he says it to her the night before they have sex. Like, "You got to know there's not going to be any attachments here." And she's like, “Fine, fine, fine.” So he reiterates that the next morning, that he would be happy to continue on as casual lovers. So here's what McCarthy writes: 

"Get yourself a pessary." Dick's muttered envoi as he propelled her firmly to the door the next morning fell on Dottie's ears with the effect of a stunning blow. Bewildered, she understood him to be saying, “Get yourself a peccary,” and a vision of a coarse piglike mammal they had studied in zoology passed across her dazed consciousness like a slide on a screen, followed by awful memories of Krafft-Ebing and the girl who had kept a goat at Vassar. Was this some variant she ought to know about, probably, of the old maid joke?

So this shows just how naive she is. 

KIM: Totally. There's just so much going on in this passage. 

AMY: He's just like shoving her out the door, basically saying like, “Go get a pessary.” 

KIM: Come back when you're, uh, yeah, pessard. I don't know, whatever that is.

AMY: Um, so she's confused thinking he's saying get yourself a peccary, and all these thoughts are running through her head. It gets funnier and funnier, that little scene. And then he sees that she's confused, and so he clarifies: “A female contraceptive, a plug,” Dick threw out impatiently. “You get it from a lady doctor. Ask your friend Kay.”

 Understanding dawned; her heart did a handspring. In a person like Dick, her feminine instinct caroled, this was surely the language of love.

KIM: Oh, Dottie. 

AMY: So, yeah. So she does, she goes and she gets herself to the gynecologist. And let me read another little passage:

…Dottie, all by herself, had visited a birth-control bureau and received a doctor's name and a sheaf of pamphlets that described a myriad of devices — tampons, sponges, collar-button, wishbone, and butterfly pessaries, thimbles, silk rings, and coils — and the virtues and drawbacks of each.

[First of all, I don't know what half of those are, just FYI.] 

KIM: Sounds like torture devices or something. I don't know. Or something a tailor would use. I don't know. Weird.

AMY: The new device recommended to Dottie by the bureau had the backing of the whole U.S. medical profession; it had been found by Margaret Sanger in Holland and was now for the first time being imported in quantity into the USA where our own manufacturers could copy it. It combined the maximum of protection with a minimum of inconvenience and could be used by any woman of average or better intelligence following the instructions of a qualified physician.

This article, a rubber cap mounted on a coiled spring, came in a range of sizes and would be tried out in Dottie's vagina, for fit, wearing comfort, and so on, in the same way that various lenses were tried out for the eyes. The woman doctor would insert it, and having made sure of the proper size, she would teach Dottie how to put it in…

 And so she goes on from there with very, very, detailed instructions on how to insert this device. So again, it's like a sex ed pamphlet.

KIM: Totally. It's like the government put out a pamphlet explaining how this all came about and what your options are.

AMY: Yeah. Like a PSA. Yeah. So this is just one aspect where McCarthy is doing that. There's other moments throughout the book where she's sort of giving women information.

KIM: You know, that makes me think about Priss and her battle with breastfeeding. She actually marries a pediatrician, and so he's basically telling her what the latest information is on how she should be a new mother. Um, she's talking about how much it's hurting at first, breastfeeding, and the dread you feel when the baby hasn't eaten enough. She's worried about his weight goals. Um, it's really harrowing for her, and yet she's being encouraged by her husband, actually not even encouraged, more like... really forced ordered to let her baby cry it out at the hospital and she's so unsure of what to do. She just wants to do the right thing and it was so hard to read honestly because she wanted to pick him up and they weren't letting her. It was hard to read.

AMY: Yeah. It was hard to read, but also satisfying to read because I remember like the early days of breastfeeding and how, much it did hurt, you know, and I remember a nurse saying, "Say the alphabet in your head and grit your teeth, and by the time you get to the letter Z, hopefully it'll stop hurting."

KIM: Yeah. Oh my god. 

AMY: Like in a way it was comforting to read too. But yeah, also just the 1930s maternity ward scene was hilarious. So a lot of the group members were coming to visit her. She's just had a baby, they're literally smoking cigarettes in the room. 

KIM: Right 

AMY: They’re pouring cocktails to celebrate the baby. 

KIM: It was a cocktail party!

AMY: It was. And then it was so funny too, because I don't remember which member of The Group, but they were always joking "Can you believe Priss is breastfeeding? Because she was the most flat chested of us all." And then McCarthy has one of the ladies make some joke about like, "It's the miracle of the loaves and fishes" because Priss had the smallest boobs and she's breastfeeding. Yeah. So, but yeah, so there's all these social issues tackled, you know, others are mental health because Polly's dad is manic depressive in the book. And then we have Kay, you know, being committed. Um, psychoanalysis is talked about a lot. It's not really a very plot-heavy book, but her description of the characters is to me what makes the book. Like, her ability to write about them in a way that you know exactly the sort of woman she's talking about, which does get back to the friends sort of being upset, because it's not always kind. Um, what do we think in general about the book? I know you had mixed feelings.

KIM: I had mixed feelings. Um, so I started reading it. I got a little tired of it, to be honest. I put it down. I picked it back up later. That is not the sign for me of something… If I really love it, I'm just going to like, drop everything and read it. I did not do that. And then sometimes I had trouble keeping track of all the characters, cause there were so many of them. But that said, having finished it now, I felt it was definitely worthwhile to read. So I recommend it, but I didn't love, love, love it. What did you think? 

AMY: I had the same issue. I was gripped by it enough to keep going solidly through and finish to the end. But my problem was I just felt she didn't need so many members of The Group. It was too many, and she couldn't or she didn't devote enough time to all of them equally to make it worth having some of the other characters. Pokey...

KIM: Yeah.

AMY: There was hardly anything to Pokey. 

KIM: She was an extra. 

AMY: She could have ditched Pokey. She could have ditched Lakey, even though she was one of my favorite characters. She wasn't there for most of the book. I think some of the characters could have been combined. You know, like, um, Helena could have been combined with Dottie or something like that. So yeah, it is very long. I unfortunately was comparing it a lot of the time to The Best of Everything, which we did an episode on previously because there are similarities. Now, The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe was published in 1958, and The Group was published in 1963. I'll put you on the spot, Kim. Which did you like better?

KIM: Oh, The Best of Everything. For me, personally. 

AMY: Yeah. 

KIM: The Best of Everything was my favorite. 

AMY: I don't think The Best of Everything was trying to be everything that The Group was trying to be. Like, I think The Group is definitely aiming for a higher literary quality than The Best of Everything. But yeah, The Best of Everything follows four girls in a slightly later time period, but they're going through a lot of the same things, and it was just a more delightful read. 

KIM: That's exactly right. It's just more engaging because you're not having, “Okay, now we're to this character. What did that person do again?” You know, like, and trying to reconnect with that character again. I always felt connected with the characters in The Best of Everything.

AMY: Yeah, I think what you said earlier, Kim, is right. They had such a bonding moment at Vassar, and Vassar really prepared them to go out into the world set up for success and to have all these idealistic ways they could be in the world. 

KIM: Idealistic is the perfect word.

AMY: Yeah, like they graduate, the “daisy chain” is now ready to take on the world and make a difference, and then it's kind of dashed to pieces. 

KIM: Yeah. Yeah. If it had been an all female society…

AMY: It's true, it's like Vassar was a utopia and then they go back out and okay, now what?

KIM: They’ve got to try to work with what they learned and take that into the real world and it doesn't fit into the real world, sadly.

AMY: Yeah. And Lakey is the one who manages to escape and find happiness, but she's off the canvas for a lot of the time.

KIM: Right. So, let's talk about the book's reception. As we mentioned earlier, it was an instant bestseller, but it also had its critics, particularly among highbrow literary types. In the New York Review of Books, Norman Mailer famously wrote a scathing 4,000-word review of the book. He said, "Her book fails as a novel by being good, but not nearly good enough. She is simply not a good enough woman to write a major novel."

AMY: Ouch.

KIM: I mean, this is just... the reviews that we've read by men about women's work it's like “Fine if you don't like it,” but like the way... it gets worse, he called it "a trivial lady writers novel infused with a communal odor, a cross between Ma Griffe, that's a perfume, and contraceptive jelly." I mean, yikes. Also that the book could be said to "squat on the grand avenue of the novel like a shabby little boutique, a place which offers treasure in the trash."

AMY: A treasure in the trash is like, it's got a little something good going for it, but it's really treasure mixed in the trash. 

KIM: I just want to hit him over the head with it.

AMY: You know what though, when you think about Norman Mailer and how uncomfortable a novel this would be for him to read, it does tackle women's issues.

KIM: Yes. 

AMY: The putting in the “peccary” or whatever. 

KIM: He shouldn’t even be reviewing it.

AMY: There was a sense from him, I think, and so I wanted to try to give him a little bit of credit here because she was already a very well-respected literary figure when this came out. She had already written books that were critically, you know, um…

KIM: Lauded. 

AMY: Yeah, lauded. So I think there was a sense of disappointment from him that she had sacrificed her potential literary greatness by writing about women's issues after writing these other books that were more acclaimed.

KIM: Right. The same old story that women's issues are domestic issues and they're not like on the level or scale of

AMY: Right. Yes, especially because this was the 1930s and there were so many big world issues brewing, and so he was like, You had an opportunity to really tackle the vibe of this era, and this is what you gave us? It was sort of a feeling of like, I had high hopes for her, but now I'm not so sure she can hang with us greats, you know what I mean? That's the tone I took from his review. Um, and he basically, he writes the review like it's some sort of indictment. I think it's called the case, not the case against, but like the Case of Mary McCarthy [The Mary McCarthy Case]. And it's almost like a court judgment, the way he wrote it. We'll put that review in our show notes because I think it's worth reading just for some of the vitriol there alone. 

KIM: Wow.

AMY: But yeah, his review isn't all bad and I will say some of what he says. I do agree with. It wasn't our favorite novel ever. We didn't fully like it. Um, others have Hillary Mantel once called it a masterpiece.

KIM: And I love Hillary Mantel. Yeah, I mean, I guess my issue with what he's saying is the part of him claiming that what she's writing about isn't important in the scheme of things, if that's what he's trying to say, because I think that's actually the best part of it.

AMY: Yeah. And the "perfume" and the "contraceptive jelly"... he's using words relating to women and femininity to critique her, which is gross. Like “a shabby little boutique.” It's like he's talking down using women terminology, if that makes sense. Um, but he wasn't the only one that criticized it. Elizabeth Hardwick, the famous literary critic, um, McCarthy considered her to be a friend, but she called it an "awful, fatuous, superficial book." And she also wrote a mean spirited parody of The Group in the New York Review called “The Gang,” using a pseudonym, and Mary McCarthy was apparently very hurt by this. I think it would be interesting to see a parody of it, cause It was such a sensation. 

KIM: Hmm. Yeah, totally. Yeah. It's almost like if you get a skit from Saturday Night Live, it's like a good thing. Even if they're making fun of you, it's like, obviously whatever you did impacted culture. 

AMY: Yeah, exactly. And I tried to look up online, and read this, “The Gang,” the story she wrote, and I couldn't find it. I need to do a little more sleuthing to actually read it because maybe it was very mean-spirited. I'm not sure.

KIM: This reminds me of the episode we did on literary feuds. 

AMY: Yeah, yeah, the Willa Cather and Dorothy Canfield Fisher episode. Yeah, exactly. That was one of our early episodes. So Mary McCarthy wrote The Group when she was in her 50s and in an interview with The Observer 16 years later after it was published, she said that it had ruined her life. And I think it was because of the backlash with her friends, and yeah, I don't know. It's funny though because it's really the book that she's most well known for today. It did get optioned right away and turned into a film in 1966. I actually loved the movie.

KIM: Oh, yeah, I didn't love the movie, but I found it entertaining. It's so funny. I watched it with Eric, my husband, and it was good that I had read the book because I had to explain a lot of what was happening to him. He was like, “Who is that person?” There's so many characters that if you haven't read it, I think it's hard to keep track of who the characters are and why they matter. 

AMY: Okay, that's fair. The movie really does hone in on the high melodrama moments, almost in a campy way. 

KIM: Totally. Totally. High melodrama is exactly right.

AMY: I liked it, but I think you're right. You kind of had to have read the book. 

KIM: I'd say it was fun, but for me, probably I should have watched it without him. I warned him, but you know, he doesn't listen. Anyway.

AMY: Uh, getting back to Mary McCarthy, she died in 1989 when she was in her late 70s.

KIM: I'm wondering which of her other books are worth reading next. We mentioned her campus novel Groves of Academe in a previous episode, What do you think? 

AMY: Yeah, I'm intrigued by her debut novel. It's called The Company She Keeps, because it's kind of a send up of New York high society. 

KIM: Oh, that sounds fun. 

AMY: Yeah, and it was very much a critical success. There's also a famous short story she wrote called "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt," which is about a woman having casual sex with a businessman on a train. It was originally published in The Partisan Review, and I had heard of that, um, that title is very familiar.

KIM: Me too. Yeah, I know. I wish we had time to read more of her work. I'm just going to have to put it on the list for someday, but I'm definitely interested. And we haven't talked that much about her life in the episode because we were so caught up discussing the book, but I feel like there's probably a lot to say there as well.

AMY: Yeah, it seemed like she had a really interesting life and a tragic childhood, actually. She and her brothers were orphaned at an early age when their parents both died from the flu, the Epidemic of 1918. So the siblings all went to live with relatives, but it sounds like that was an abusive environment. And actually, I think we might be able to get more, uh, by reading her autobiography Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, which gets into all of this a bit more.

KIM: Oh, interesting. And Amy, wasn't she also involved at one point in a public feud with the playwright Lillian Hellman? I don't really know the details of that, but maybe there's a future episode to be had in there.

AMY: Yeah. Speaking of literary feuds, maybe we do a follow up. I didn't know all the ins and outs of this, but apparently, um, this feud between Hellman and McCarthy inspired Nora Ephron to write a play about it called “Imaginary Friends”. So I think the fight stemmed from some sort of political disagreement, but what I do know is that Mary McCarthy then went on The Dick Cavett Show and said something to the effect of every word Lillian Hellman writes is a lie, including "and," and "the."

KIM: Oh my God. Wow. So they can just, you know, when you're that famous, you can just go on The Dick Cavett Show.

AMY: …and cast aspersions, yeah. So Hellman sued her for that, for libel, um, and that made the feud even more public. 

KIM: Naturally. Yeah. So obviously listeners, we barely scratched the surface of Mary McCarthy, but we're out of time for today. So maybe we'll circle back at some later date, but it was really fun getting to discuss The Group with you, Amy.

AMY: Yeah, I'm glad I read it. And finally, before we sign off here for a few weeks, listeners, we wanted to leave you guys with a little update, some of the responses that we got a few weeks back to our episode on mondegreens.

KIM: Oh yeah. That was a fun episode. And a mondegreen, if you remember, is the term to describe misinterpreting song lyrics.

AMY: Yeah, we asked you listeners to weigh in on some of your own mondegreens, which were hysterical. So we're just going to share a couple of them here with you. We will withhold their names to protect the innocent, but you guys know who you are.

KIM: Okay. Let's hear them.

AMY: Okay, um, first one somebody wrote to us on our Facebook forum and said that they always thought that the song, “If You Like Piña Coladas,

and Getting Caught in the Rain,” you know that one? She always interpreted it as, "If you like tea and enchiladas..." 

KIM: I feel like that particular song, the lyrics are so strange, there are probably so many people who have incorrect ideas about the lyrics.

AMY: Yeah, yeah, and like tea and enchiladas is such a weird dietary combo. Okay, next one, the song by Toni Braxton called “Breathe Again.” It's like, "If I never feel your tender kiss again. If I never hear I love you now and then. [hums]." I don't know the lyrics right here. So she says, basically, I promise that I shall never breathe again. And then it's like, “breathe again, breathe again.” Well, this person thought she was saying, "I shall never read again, read again."

KIM: That’s terrible. That's worse than not breathing again.

AMY: I know, I know, “I won't breathe again” is a pretty extreme reaction to have, but “I will never read again” is an even more extreme reaction. And the person was like, "What does she have against reading?" Um, and then my favorite, Is from a former guest of ours who wrote to me and said that the Alanis Morissette song, “You Oughta Know”, where she sings, “It's not fair to deny me of the cross I bear that you gave to me.”

KIM: You, you, you, oughta know!

AMY: They thought that she was singing, "It's not fair to deny me of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me." So picture like a deranged-looking stuffed bear with cross eyes. Like the creepy Five Nights at Freddy's bear. She's like, “You gave it to me. I'm not giving you that cross eyed-bear back.” 

KIM: Okay. Yeah. Anyway, that's all for today's episode on that note. We're going to be back in late January with all new episodes, but in the meantime, we'll still be active on Instagram and our Facebook forum. So be sure to follow us there to stay in touch and to find out which Lost Ladies will be featuring in the new year. And also if you go to lostladiesoflit.com, you can sign up for our newsletter and we'll also be emailing you to remind you so you don't forget when the new episodes start.

AMY: And we'll be reminding you about how to sign up for our Patreon. And also as we sign off for 2023, we want to say thank you as always for your support. What a great year it's been discovering all these women writers with you.

KIM: Yeah. It's been amazing. Thank you to our wonderful guests too. Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.