The Group by Mary McCarthy

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

Anyone read this? Highly recommend.

I've just started and am amazed by how contemporary, frank and fresh it is. I have to keep checking it is set in the 1930s and was published in the 1960s.

The depiction of Dottie losing her virginity and going to the family planning clinic. I cannot think of a 21st century writer or novel that is as incisive, realistic and unsentimental.

I must start it back again. It was hugely recommended, but I struggled with it and didn't finish it.
It's weird, because on paper it looks like a book I'd love.

Not long finished it, really enjoyed it. And relevant to this forum, the chapters regarding babies and child-rearing are fascinating.

read it recently, found 60s copy in Frinton on Sea of all places. Really good, makes you grateful for some of the things us women have achieved since then.

I have not got to child-rearing yet. Will update when I have finished.

Great book, read it years ago, one of my favourites.

Everything I know about Truby King I learned from The Group. Poor little Priss Crockett.

I loved it years ago - will have to seek it out now and re-read it.

I have to say that I really ground my teeth through the two chapters with Priss's breastfeeding and toilet-training. I found it a lot more distressing than the last chapter to be honest. Thought the bit about Ichabod in the sling was hilarious though. Will try and post a more thoughtful analysis when I am feeling up to it.

i read this recently and found it hard going, too many characters that came and then went for a long time and came back again. So i had forgotten who they were etc. I enjoyed the chapters about breast feeding etc but as someone said above on paper it should have been a book l loved but thought it was just ok.

Finally read this last year (got a copy about 25 years ago!) and really, really enjoyed it. I must have tried to read it when I was in my early 20s and I couldn't relate to the characters then.

brilliant book; must read it again (paying special attention to the child-rearing chapters, which I probably skimmed before )

I read it at university 20 yrs ago and thought it was great - think I will re-read and see if I still feel the same.

ooh i loved this about 30 years ago, must see if i still have it!

I first read it in my teens and then got a review copy of the Virago reprint over a year ago. I thought it was a fascinating book - I liked the friends who had political arguments as well as the chapters about having children.

One of the many books I hope to get to this year is a biography of McCarthy - it seems she was quite a character. And in the summer Virago reprint The Company She keeps (which I've never read). I also have her memoir and would like to read that (Memories of a Catholic Girlhood).

Read this for the first time today. Fascinating novel - SO modern, both in the writing style, and in the content.

I am struggling to think of another novel which deals so well with thinking women who also have children.

I read it fairly recently and enjoyed it. The chapter on breastfeeding was heartbreaking - a real revelation.

Years ago I read and loved Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, can definitely recommend.