It could be argued that [ McCarthys] finest book is Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, first published in 1957 and now reissued in a handsome paperback by Fitzcarraldo Editions.... Colm Tóibķn, in his sympathetic and subtle introduction, notes the similarities between Mary McCarthy and the poet Elizabeth Bishop, both of whom grew up parentless, and used their orphanhood as literary material. Yet the biographies of both women bespeak an incurable sadness and a sense of damage, however bravely borne. McCarthy was the sprightlier and more feisty of the two, and in Memories of a Catholic Girlhood she made a small, or perhaps more than small, masterpiece.
John Banville, Observer McCarthy has integrity, writes what she wants and keeps you with her all the way. The end notes following each chapter let McCarthy play a confident game of truth-twisting, flagging her narrative inventions without so much as the whiff of an apology. I fear McCarthy would be disappointed in me for giving an unqualified rave review, my critical faculties seduced by her rakish pen. As a ruthlessly honest interrogation of family dynamics, as an account of a 1920s Irish-American life before it became fashionable, and as a portrait of an intellectual awakening this memoir stands as a classic.
Naoise Dolan, Irish Times Admission of changed names and hazarded dialogue is now common practice in memoir but, as the novelist Colm Tóibķn describes in his introduction to this smart new edition, McCarthy is after more than just the trust of her reader. She set herself free with these well-integrated addenda, gave herself permission to write scenes and characters that were more memorable than adherence to any set of full facts might demand. And the tactic works. A big part of the books charm is its self-consciousness. Few writers have captured so precisely what it means to be the kind of resolute child who believes forcefully and dutifully in whatever it is they happen to be convinced by that day. This is a book worthy of its label: a true classic.
Ceci Browning, Sunday Times Read on its own, this book is a powerful testament to the human spirits capacity for reinvention. McCarthys direct style, confessional in tone, has the feel of a friend whispering secrets into your ear. The prose is wry and colourful and never less than captivating, whether the reader is wincing at her aunts cruelties or shuddering at McCarthys teenage misadventures. Read alongside McCarthys other work, which includes several volumes of criticism, essays and journalism (she reported from North and South Vietnam), Memories adds welcome flesh to the autobiographical scaffolding of her eight novels.
Susie Mesure, Prospect Magazine First Lady of American Letters our Joan of Arc.
Norman Mailer When my friends and I were in our twenties in the 1950s, we read two writers Colette and Mary McCarthy as others read the Bible: to learn better who we were and how, given the constraint of our condition, we were to live.
Vivian Gornick Published in 1957, [ Memories of a Catholic Girlhood] is considered by some to be the best of her two dozen books, including eight novels and several volumes of essays, reportage and criticism. Its superiority derives not only from the passionate sense of justice that imbues the depiction of her ghastly Cinderella childhood, but also the singular circumstances of its composition.
J. Michael Lennon, TLS Superb... so heartbreaking that in comparison Jane Eyre seems to have got off lightly.
Anita Brookner, Spectator Brilliant.
Penelope Lively, Telegraph
