McCarthy, Mary Therese (1912–1989)

US novelist and critic. Much of her work looks probingly at US society, for example, the satirical novel The Groves of Academe (1952), which describes the anticommunist witch-hunts of the time (see Joe McCarthy), and The Group (1963; filmed 1966), which follows the post-college careers of eight women.

Born in Seattle, Washington, McCarthy graduated from Vassar in 1933 and was a book reviewer for The Nation and The New Republic. She also wrote A Charmed Life (1955), Venice Observed (1956), The Stones of Florence (1959), Vietnam (1967), Hanoi (1968), Mask of State: Watergate Portraits (1974), and Cannibals and Missionaries (1979). Her short stories are collected in ‘The Company She Keeps’ (1942) and ‘Cast a Cold Eye’ (1950).