The Group

Summary (from the publisher): 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.

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.

Review: Published in 1963 and an immediate success, topping best-seller lists for months, The Group follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates, class of '33, as they navigate life in their twenties.  The ladies of the novel - Kay, Dottie, Libby, Pokey, Lakey, Helena, Polly, and Priss - seem to float in and out of each other's lives through the period of the novel, 1933-1940 and struggle with the turbulent social period of America between two world wars. Brought together at the beginning of the novel by the wedding of one of the group, the group is not wholly united again until brought together for the funeral of a group member in the conclusion. 

I was really intrigued by this novel about a group of college friends, especially since it was set in the 1930s. I was surprised to discover that many of the girls were not close friends, but rather were associated with one another in college because they lived together. I was also shocked by how bluntly this novel treated the girls' sexual encounters. The second chapter details Dottie losing her virginity to the unsuitable Dick Brown. Afterwards, Dick tells Dottie to "get a pessary" and explicitly describes Dottie's trip to the doctor to procure a diaphragm, and a discussion about the etiquette of whose place should house the birth control and the social meaning by that choice (58). Although describing events of the 1930s, this language would have been shocking to readers even in the 1960s when this book was published, and in fact, did lead to the book being banned in several countries soon after it was released.

I was also surprised by how little the Great Depression factored into this novel, I think largely because "The Group" is mostly composed of girls from wealthier families, who were insulated from the war. "Great wealth was a frightful handicap; it insulated you from living. The depression, whatever else you could say about it, had been a truly wonderful thing for the propertied classes; it had waked a lot of them up to the things that really counted. There wasn't a family Priss knew that wasn't happier and saner for having to scale down its expenditures; sacrifices had drawn the members together" (31). The girls, living in New York City, seem largely oblivious to the suffering going on in the country at the time due to the economic downturn.

However, the social and political climate of the time certainly was a strong presence in the novel. There is much discussion of politics, including the socialist movement. All the characters seem determined to not make the mistakes of their parents and are branching out to try new, radical lifestyles, like Norine's (a fellow class of '33 member but not a member of The Group) modern and sparse apartment with her first husband, Kay's nontraditional wedding, and Priss' decision to nurse instead of bottle feed her baby.  There's a lot of discussion of the new generation; "Dottie and her friends were all going out to work, mostly at volunteer jobs, and were not trammeled by any of the fears and social constraints that had beset her own generation" (226).

I really enjoyed this novel, but I have to admit that it doesn't have much of a plot. I think including eight girls as the main characters is too many, and as a consequence, little detail or time is spent on any one character, and it made it difficult to maintain a central narrative spread over some many diverse and individual lives. I had a difficult time keeping all the girls separate in my mind. However, McCarthy did do a great job of providing snapshots of the girls individually. For example, chapter ten, which starts simply with "Priss Hartshorn Crockett was nursing her baby. That was the big news" (286). The chapter is spent solely on this small detail of Priss' life - her anxiety over her baby and her choice to breastfeed him. This is the only chapter devoted to Priss but this poignant and detailed chapter gives a perfect snapshot of her life in that moment.  As a woman in my twenties, navigating post-college life, it was intriguing to see how other women might have handled this transition decades earlier.

Stars: 4