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Reviews
*'One of my favourite books ever
McCarthy's characters confront many of the same issues as their modern counterparts: sex and contraception, career and marriage, love and lust, fidelity to one's husband versus loyalty to one's friends and the attempt to carve out a place for oneself unconstrained by the gender limitations of previous generations. Its continuing relevance is one of the book's most extraordinary attributes
A woman of intellect and style
Shocking, titillating, and acid-laced . . . the book still dazzles as a generational portrait, falters as fiction, and blighted McCarthy's life
She is a sparkler, a very funny, very savage moralist, and a brilliant mimic
Absorbing, funny, painful . . . I consider it a masterpiece
Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant
Her greatest novel . . . marvellous . . . a prophetic book which set the scene . . . for the novels of protest and liberation in the next decade
Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining
Few works of literature can genuinely be termed "ahead of their time"
This is the book which has aroused considerable advance speculation and well it might; it has a tremendous reader recognition . . . there cannot be much doubt that Mary McCarthy is an exceptional social satirist, with a jackdaw eye and an infallible ear
One of my favourite books ever
McCarthy's dissection of this disparate group - highly educated but powerless in a world of men - is witty and merciless but tinged with sadness.
Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining
*'A brilliant novel:honest, engaging and sharp as a tack
A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack
Scalpel-keen prose, honed on ruthless wit and insight
Feels like discovering a thrilling secret. Its prose shows a master stylist at work, its aesthetics are striking - all ivory-tipped cigarettes, hand-pureed pâté, Vassar socialists in dungarees - and it has a surprise queer romance that twists the whole narrative into new shape. It's my new standard for a summer read: lavish, hilarious, smart and mean, like a glamorous friend you're torn between fearing and crushing on
Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant