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The Company She Keeps

On sale

22nd August 2024

Price: £9.99

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Selected: Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780349018072

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BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE GROUP

‘A jagged diamond of a book’ OBSERVER

‘A woman of intellect and style’ CELIA MCGEE, NEW YORK TIMES

‘Timeless, brilliant and frighteningly insightful’ DAILY MAIL

Told through six interlinked stories, this is a dazzling, fractured portrait of 1930s New York, and of the witty, bohemian heroine at the novel’s heart. Through her encounters and experiences – with men, with radical politics, with psychoanalysis – we follow Margaret Sargent as she negotiates a fraught relationship between love and independence in a time of coming war.

Based loosely on the author’s own life, The Company She Keeps caused an instant sensation, and won Mary McCarthy immediate acclaim for its bold insight, sly wit and virtuoso style.

Reviews

Norman Mailer
A consummate piece of work
New York Times
Clever, witty, polished
Guardian
Mary McCarthy's debut collection of short stories caused a sensation in 1942 and is no less vibrant today
Daily Mail
McCarthy exposes the complex psychological workings of a brilliant, tortured and manipulative mind . . . Could have been written today. Timeless, brilliant and frighteningly insightful
Observer
McCarthy may be best known for The Group but her debut novel made nearly as much of a splash when [first] published in 1942 . . . A jagged diamond of a book, the multifaceted parts giving a glimpse of a brilliant but fractured whole