Mary McCarthy: A Life

"Mary Therese McCarthy was an American author and critic. was raised in very unhappy circumstances by her Catholic father's parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota under the direct care of an uncle and aunt she remembered for harsh treatment and abuse. McCarthy credited her grandfather, who helped draft one of the nation's first Workmen's Compensation Acts, with helping form her liberal views. McCarthy explores the complex events of her early life in Minneapolis and her coming of age in Seattle in her successful memoir, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. "