Written with a trenchant, sardonic edge, The Group is a dazzlingly outspoken novel and a captivating look at the social history of America between two world wars. "Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant."--CosmopolitanAward-winning Mary McCarthy's most celebrated novel follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates, known simply to their classmates as “the group.” An eclectic mix of personalities and upbringings, they meet a week after graduation to watch Kay Strong get married. After the ceremony, the women begin their adult lives -- traveling to Europe, tackling the worlds of nursing and publishing, and finding love and heartbreak in the streets of New York City. Through the years, some of the friends grow apart and some become entangled in each other's affairs, but all vow not to become like their mothers and fathers. It is only when one of them passes away that they all come back together again to mourn the loss of a friend, a confidante, and most importantly, a member of the group.

During the Watergate hearings, Mary McCarthy, on commission from The Observer of London, wrote six reports from Washington telling the amazing story of deceit and arrogance in the Nixon administration. She wrote two others for The New York Review of Books, including one that summarizes her view of this terrible American travesty. The reports have been greatly revised and amplified for this book. Here the reader is once again reminded, by sharply drawn portraits, of the characters of Watergate. Here is "sloping-headed, slope-shouldered" Mitchell, who "brought evil into the Caucus Room, and this was not unconnected with the boredom he was able to generate." And "the Keystone comedy cop Tony Ulasewicz"; and Senator Baker, whose "insistent questions about motive suggest that he is playing a TV role of spiritual surgeon and counselor." Maureen ("Mo") Dean appears on the sidelines "in a daily change of costume (sometimes color-harmonizing with her husband)," looking like "a bride who would want fresh jewelry for her honeymoon." Mary McCarthy's skills as a reporter, her capacity for conveying moral insights, and her great personal style make this book a singular account of an unforgettable--and almost unbearable--time in the history of the republic.--Jacket.