Even if it had not been on the Virago list, it would still entirely appeal to me I was absolutely fascinated by its premise when I began, and was eager to learn about McCarthy’s enduring and highly memorable cast of characters. The Group follows eight female graduates from Vassar College ‘as they find love and heartbreak, and choose careers and husbands against the backdrop of 1930s New York’. Sarah Waters deems The Group ‘a brilliant novel’, and Hilary Mantel considers it ‘a masterpiece’ – high praise indeed from two of the most popular contemporary novelists Britain can boast. Mary McCarthy’s The Group ticks both boxes, and was also a great choice for American Literature Month.

And beautiful art-history major Lakey, who can get any man she wants, heads to Europe following graduation to further her art-history experience, but her trip might be as much to get away from her Vassar life and head for freedom.When selecting my Classics Club books, I decided to try and include as many as I could from the Virago Modern Classics list which I am also working my way (albeit very slowly) through.

Wealthy Pokey can afford a life of leisure in marriage, for which she strives. Artist Helena, who plans to become a nursery-school teacher, is the communicator, who reports her friends goings-on to their former classmates. Politically-involved Priss knows that love and politics might not mesh, but doesn't like feeling like a science experiment as a replacement for love. Chemistry major Polly, who wanted to be a doctor but becomes a medical technician, deals with people with real or perceived psychological problems, both at work and in her personal life. Her exact opposite is Dottie, an inexperienced proper Bostonian who might settle for second-best as she strives for what she really wants despite coming to the understanding that she is less than second-best. The only one who might be more ambitious is English major Libby, who wants a job in publishing and whose bravado hides her insecurities when she doesn't get what she wants. Kay, who takes everything personally, needs to be in control, which becomes more difficult as problems emerge in the marriage and as world events occur around her. Ambitious theater major Kay, somewhat the outsider of the group, decides to get married immediately and support her struggling playwright husband Harald by getting a job at Macy's than pursue her own theater directing career.

The lives of an octet of friends who are seen as the aesthetes of the Vassar class of 1933 are presented from their graduation, when their lives held so much promise despite the Depression, to the start of WWII.

The group by mary mccarthy