Carol Gelderman

Conversations with Mary McCarthy Carol Gelderman

Publisher Marketing: For over half a century Mary McCarthy was at the center of intellectual life in America. Both through her writing-she published twenty-four books and countless reviews and essays-and through her personal involvement-from protesting Stalinism in the thirties and forties to opposing the war in Vietnam in the sixties and seventies-she helped to shape American thought and culture. She became a respected critic and was a founding editor of "Partisan Review."Fresh out of college, she set the literary world astir with a series of articles attacking the mediocrity of America's book reviewers. She very naturally gravitated to the center of controversy and remained caustic and forthright to the end of her life. The interviews collected in this book reveal a fascinating life and the brilliant mind of a born conversationalist. With a riveting, liberal intellect that could attach itself to any worthy topic, Mary McCarthy was a great and entertaining talker, able to dissect politics, literature, or nincompoops. These interviews reveal Mary McCarthy's grand-scale mind and give facts about her biography. She was interested always in finding the truth. "I believe there is a truth," she said, "and that it's knowable." Contributor Bio:  Gelderman, Carol Carol Gelderman received her PhD from Northwestern University and is currently Distinguished Professor of English Emerita at the University of New Orleans. Gelderman is the author of nine books, including "Henry Ford: The Wayward Capitalist" (1981), "Mary McCarthy: A Life" (1988), and "Louis Auchincloss: A Writer s Life" (2007). She also has a strong interest in politics and government, as reflected in her book "All the Presidents Words: The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the Virtual Presidency" (1997). She lives in New Orleans.