What we're reading, what we're liking
A Bolt From the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
Mary McCarthy -- best known for her fiction ("The Group") and memoirs (of her Catholic girlhood in particular) -- was one of America's best critics (she was married to one of the others, Edmund Wilson). Her work in that vein is selected here, by A.O. Scott, another fine literary critic, although these days he mostly reviews movies for the New York Times. Even McCarthy sometimes marveled in retrospect at her own "air of supreme authority," but that's part of her charm. These essays pronounce rather than persuade, and they definitely breathe the heady air of top-notch literary cocktail parties, but they recall a time when critics were both willing to amuse and unafraid to show their erudition (her rave review of "Pale Fire" would make most scholars feel as though they'd never read a book). There are reviews here of Tennessee Williams and J.D. Salinger (dismissive) as well as of Calvino and Burroughs (admiring), and there are several of her wonderfully sensible, stirring and funny political essays, too -- on patriotism, her flirtation with communism, and Watergate.
-- Laura Miller
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