1960s Handbook - The Group by Mary McCarthy
Mary McCarthy's The Group rose to the top of the New York Times bestseller list for fiction in 1963 then remained there for almost two years. A sharply written page-turner about eight Vassar graduates and their lives in NYC and beyond, the novel tackled such then-taboos as extramarital affairs, premarital sex, homosexuality, contraception, abortion, and psychoanalysis in a style noted for its bluntness as well as its wit. The New York Times hailed McCarthy's works for its "miraculous precision" and "believable clarity" in portraying Manhattan Bohemia, while Time Magazine noted that "for the first time, highbrow readers who have long acknowledged an athletic and logical brain will meet those who prefer the fictional products of female temperament."
The Group may have been McCarthy's most popular novel but it was also likely her most controversial. Vassar College, incensed at the book's frank sexual content, lobbied to have McCarthy's degree revoked. McCarthy's friends too were alienated as they saw in the characters thinly veiled caricatures of themselves. In 1966, Sidney Lumet's big screen adaptation of The Group starring Candice Bergen received similar criticism.
"I'm afraid I'm not sufficiently inhibited about the things that other women are inhibited about for me," McCarthy once explained. "They feel that you've given away trade secrets."
Glad to see THE GROUP, if only briefly, being read by Betty. Bravo!
I'd rather see the "Feminine Mystique" Betty Friedan's 1963 account of the emerging 60's woman..not a novel.
It changed my life!
As a 20 yr old disillusioned wife and new mother I knew this could not be it. I needed validation and this book told me I was not alone. There was much more then ' Dishes, douches, and diapers' or "99 ways to cook chicken".
MW is smart not to start out so obviously with Betty's burgeoning sense of autonomy. "The Group" is a great choice for someone of Betty's status.
I suspect that more is to come for Betty. She will not only realize that her power comes from within herself; she'll also realize that Don is not as perfect as she always thought.
I am curious as to how Betty will use the knowledge of Don's identity. I don't think, despite the promos for episode 11, that she is going to tell anyone what she has learned just yet!
Betty is not so much sexually repressed or even inhibited as she is afraid to really let anyone, including Don, know how much she wants to explore her sexuality. At the same time, however, she definitely wants the romance and the seduction; it cannot be "tawdry" like the bar encounter last season.
Note that Bert Cooper was talking about the class of '33, the same year the women of The Group graduated.
Wow, you American's are way more egalitarian than we give you credit for: "then-taboos such as extramarital affairs". So these kinds of faux-pas are fine by US standards in general these days? Interesting..
Hidey there, Clayton, long time no post (on this forum anyway)
What a juicy page-turner that one was....thanks for the link/article.
I read The Group as my high school senior English personal choice book...not knowing what I was about to read, I just knew it was a grown up book. My teacher was shocked, but let me go for it. It was a tantalizing read back in the late '60's - still is today. It throws up just about every tawdry relationship topic you can think of (about women, not men). It's very in character that Betty would read that novel, as it being a novel, kept it a little at arms distance from her personally, while still being able to dabble in all the change afoot. Betty Friedan would have been too personal. She's not ready to openly and couragously change yet. She's still hiding it in her fantasies and imagination. But boy, when she's ready, she's going to blow wide open! Can't wait!
oh yeah, and KatLen, you don't have to give up your opinion of Americans just yet...even for the "then-taboos" remark. We're still a nation of Puritans, founded by Puritans and 50% of us are voting as Puritans.
When I was at Vassar, there was a song with lyrics for all the Seven Sisters, including Betty Draper's alma mater, Bryn Mawr...for Vassar, the lyrics were, "My girl's from Vassar, none can surpass her...." Does anyone remember the lyrics for the other Seven Sisters...Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Radcliffe, Wellesley? I was vice president (meaning social chairman) of my house (dorm) at Vassar...ah, those were the days...those really really were the days...