The American writer Mary T. McCarthy (1912-1989) wrote novels and short stories as well as reportage, autobiographical essays, theater criticism, political essays, and art history.

Mary Therese McCarthy was born on June 21, 1912, in Seattle, Washington, to Roy and Therese Preston McCarthy. Her father was a lawyer. Kevin McCarthy, the actor, was her brother. Her parents died of the 1918 flu epidemic when she was six years old. For awhile she was raised by an abusive uncle; later she escaped into the care of her grandfather who sent her to school in a convent. Subsequently he provided for her education at Vassar College, where she graduated in 1933 with an A.B. While there, she helped found a literary magazine with three classmates, all of whom went on to become important persons in American writing: Elizabeth Bishop, Muriel Rukeyser, and Eleanor Clark. After graduation she taught briefly at Bard and Sarah...