The Group, Mary McCarthy
The Group, Mary McCarthy
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The Group
A Novel

Author: Mary McCarthy

Narrator: Diana Gardiner

Unabridged: 15 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/05/2026

Synopsis

This smash bestseller about privileged Vassar classmates shocked America in the sixties and remains "juicy . . . witty . . . brilliant" (Cosmopolitan).   At Vassar, they were known as "the group"—eight young women of privilege, the closest of friends, an eclectic mix of vibrant personalities. A week after graduation in 1933, they all gather for the wedding of Kay Strong, one of their own, before going their separate ways in the world. In the years that follow, they will each know accomplishment and loss in equal measure, pursuing careers and marriage, experiencing the joys and traumas of sexual awakening and motherhood, all while suffering through betrayals, infidelities, and sometimes madness. Some of them will drift apart. Some will play important roles in the personal dramas of others. But it is tragedy that will ultimately unite the group once again. A novel that stunned the world when it was first published in 1963, Mary McCarthy's The Group found acclaim, controversy, and a place atop the New York Times bestseller list for nearly two years for its frank and controversial exploration of women's issues, social concerns, and sexuality. A blistering satire of the mores of an emergent generation of women, The Group is McCarthy's enduring masterpiece, still as relevant, powerful, and wonderfully entertaining fifty years on. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Wayne on March 13, 2016

I can remember my Dad's married sisters discussing this book (they were voracious readers always) in the 1960's. I was determined to read it and finally got hold of it in 1967 when I was studying to be a Catholic priest. My Student Director immediately confiscated it, so I knew its reputation was s......more

Goodreads review by Greg on March 07, 2013

After tearing through Mary McCarthy's The Group, I'm kinda shocked that it hasn't been inducted into the canon yet. The book is a stunning, scary look at gender relations in the 1930s, yet so searing that it's a shock to see it was written in the 1950s. Even Mad Men, written from the perspective of......more

Goodreads review by Ines on October 12, 2019

I do it fast and simple: A charade of facts, events, places and characters... but nothing that has kidnapped me or anythin significant that has remained in my heart. Yes, this book slipped away from me with absolutely nothing.... I immediately say that there by there, the girls of Vassar College in q......more

Goodreads review by Christine on August 15, 2011

You know when you're in the middle of a good book and you have to put it down, you still think about the characters and the story? Well, that was NOT the case with this book! I never connected and never felt anything about it. Apparently, this book first came out in 1954 & 1963 and I think the reaso......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on October 28, 2008

This is pretty much my ideal novel. It's set in 1930s New York and follows the lives of several Vassar graduates. There has been only a few truly slow portions of this novel. I laughed aloud in several parts of the novel. All of the talk of New York high-society, 1930s politics, Freudian psychothera......more

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