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The Group

A New York Times Best Seller
  • Author
    • Mary McCarthy
Format
Regular price £9.99
Regular price Sale price £9.99

Anticipated publication date

Aug 01, 2024

We will deliver the product within a reasonable period of time following the publication date

The publication date is an estimated date only and is subject to change.

We anticipate that the book will be published on this date. However, should the estimated publication date change for whatever reason, we will notify you within a reasonable period of time.

'Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant' COSMOPOLITAN

'A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack' SARAH WATERS


'Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining' SUNDAY TIMES


This groundbreaking novel celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2023. One of the first novels to frankly depict friendship, sex and women's lives. It was a revelation and continues to inspire today.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY MONICA ALI

Mary McCarthy's most celebrated novel portrays the lives and aspirations of eight Vassar graduates. 'The group' meet in New York following graduation to attend the wedding of one of their friends - and reconvene seven years later at her funeral. The women, fresh from college, vowed not to become stuffy and frightened like their parents, but to lead fulfilling, emancipated lives. Who really achieved this - and what sacrifices and compromises had to be made?

'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' ELIZABETH DAY, GUARDIAN
  • Published: Aug 01 2024
  • ISBN: 9780349018065
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Press Reviews

  • Cosmopolitan
    Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant
  • Sarah Waters

    A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack
  • India Knight

    One of my favourite books ever
  • Sunday Times
    Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining
  • Hilary Mantel

    Absorbing, funny, painful . . . I consider it a masterpiece
  • Mikaella Clements

    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
  • Laura Jacobs

    Vanity Fair
    Shocking, titillating, and acid-laced . . . the book still dazzles as a generational portrait, falters as fiction, and blighted McCarthy's life
  • Elizabeth Day

    Guardian
    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
  • The Times
    Few works of literature can genuinely be termed "ahead of their time"
  • Celia McGee

    New York Times
    A woman of intellect and style
  • Kirkus Reviews
    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
  • Independent
    Her greatest novel . . . marvellous . . . a prophetic book which set the scene . . . for the novels of protest and liberation in the next decade
  • Observer
    Scalpel-keen prose, honed on ruthless wit and insight
  • Spectator
    She is a sparkler, a very funny, very savage moralist, and a brilliant mimic
  • Daily Mail
    McCarthy's dissection of this disparate group - highly educated but powerless in a world of men - is witty and merciless but tinged with sadness.