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.

Mary McCarthy's debut collection of short stories caused a sensation in 1942 and is no less vibrant today * Guardian *
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 * Observer *
McCarthy exposes the complex psychological workings of a brilliant, tortured and manipulative mind . . . Could have been written today. Timeless, brilliant and frighteningly insightful * Daily Mail *
A consummate piece of work -- Norman Mailer
Clever, witty, polished * New York Times *

Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) was born in Seattle, Washington. She was a short-story writer, bestselling novelist, essayist and an art critic. She was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and won the National Medal for Literature and the Edward MacDowell Medal in 1984. Her debut novel, The Company She Keeps (1942), initiated her ascent to the most celebrated writers of her generation; the publication of her autobiography Memories of a Catholic Girlhood in 1957 bolstered this reputation. McCarthy wrote more than twenty-four books, including the now-classic novel The Group (1963). This was the New York Times Best Seller for two years.