Cast a Cold Eye

by Mary McCarthy

The seven stories collected here showcase McCarthy's formidable powers of observation, her deliciously witty writing style, and her celebrated talent for dissecting characters with biting acuity. A young woman looks for subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways to escape her unsatisfying marriage; an innocuous single man's friends realize his companionship has an enormous price; and an Italian guide puzzles a traveling pair of Americans.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, American

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

People note American writer Mary Therese McCarthy for her sharp literary criticism and satirical fiction, including the novels The Groves of Academe (1952) and The Group (1963).

McCarthy studied at Vassar college in Poughkeepsie, New York and graduated in 1933. McCarthy moved to city of New York and incisively wrote as a known contributor to publications such as the Nation, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books. Her debut novel, The Company She Keeps (1942), initiated her ascent to the most celebrated writers of her generation; the publication of her autobiography Memories of a Catholic Girlhood in 1957 bolstered this reputation.

This literary critic authored more than two dozen books, including the now-classic novel The Group , the New York Times bestseller in 1963.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McC...

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seven short stories are included in this collection (two of which are also printed in Memories of a Catholic Girlhood). Filled with characteristic narrative see-saws between probity and naughtiness (this is personified, particularly, in "The Cicerone," with the "moral" young couple - thinly veiled portraits of McCarthy and her third husband Bowden Broadwater - compared to the promiscuous Miss Grabbe - a thinly veiled Peggy Guggenheim). "C.Y.E." is also quite amusing and very well-told. The two stories that later appear in Catholic Girlhood leave the reader breathless; they are masterfully executed short stories.

[Chelsea Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had never really read much Mary McCarthy in high school, maybe one or two stories, but she was among the writers I discovered thanks to good English teachers whose eye-rolling critiques of modern society, alongside Dorothy Parker, Sinclair Lewis, and H.L. Mencken, really appealed to 15-ish year old me. The stories in the first section of this collection, as well as the novella "The Oasis" fit this bill, but now that I'm older, the three autobiographial stories about her Catholic childhood: "Yonder Peasant, Who is He?" "The Blackguard," and "C. Y.E."were the most interesting to me, so maybe I'll read the other collection that has more of those.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, the best of which was the first one, "The Weeds." In general, this book was a disappointment. I enjoy Mary McCarthy, but many of the stories were simply not enough to hold my attention.

[David Gross · Rating 2 out of 5]

...read the first four stories, didn't much care for 'em, put the book down...

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've made more attempts at The Group than I can count, and I had mistakenly used that to dismiss McCarthy's work in general. Thankfully, I took a shot at this collection of short stories, and liked it enough to keep working through the rest of her oeuvre (I've just started Birds of America).

Opener "The Weeds" is a beautifully ruminative piece regarding a woman's attempts to end her marriage and save her garden. The standout in the collection for me, "The Friend of the Family" strangely reminded me of what David Foster Wallace would have sounded like in 1950 with its intricate picking at the essential idea of a very particular kind of person who McCarthy somehow raises to a universally knowable archetype. I really loved this one. "The Old Men" sees a dark music down sterile hospital hallways as its protagonist measures their own fate against those around him.

The collection's closing three pieces bring a more directly autobiographical tone. "Yonder Peasant, Who Is He?" reveals the sad yet fascinating story of McCarthy's parent-less youth as she and her sibling bounced from grandmother to uncle. "The Blackguard" details McCarthy's attempts to save her grandfather's soul on the count of a technicality with the church. "C.Y.E." is a perfect closer for the book, as it concerns the author's particular appreciation for the power of words and the long shadows they names can cast if we let them.

[Kristen Iler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't realize this was a book of short stories until I was halfway through the second story. I thought it was the most artsty and random novel of my entire life. I wondered when the characters from chapter one would come back. When I figured out it's a collection of short stories I didn't find it as fascinating. 😂

[Derek Henderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horribly over-written. Another writer who thinks they have to explain the world to us. Heavily freighted with clever-clever psychological insights that never ring true. Written for the sake of writing, not to inform or entertain.

[KathleenW · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, but not really my bag anymore. Kinda introspective thought from 60 years ago. Felt Kind of like I've been there done that feeling.

[Vel Veeter]

This is a relatively short collection of stories by the writer Mary McCarthy. She’s most well-known for a novel, The Group (which I love) and a memoir, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (which I have not read). This collection blends the two and presents four fictional short stories and three short memoir/autobiography pieces.

The stories are in general quite good and have the same kind of wry sense of humor presented in almost serious tone so that the humor is incredibly dry and almost imperceptible. The opening story is about a woman in a quite disappointing marriage who promises herself that she will leave her husband as soon as the petunias are in bloom. She does this in order to both establish and delay the eventual decision. Throughout, she spends time considering whether or not she wants to actually tend to the flowers or sabotage, and she considers murdering her husbands because that would be actually irrevocable as opposed to leaving him, which could always be reversed.

Another very good story is about a man of no strong positive or negative features, so that everybody kind of likes him and no one hates him. What this ends up creating in his life is an intense pressure put upon those around him. The best of the memoir pieces involves the narrator Mary McMarthy passing by a Catholic storefront called CYE and trying to figure out what the letters, if anything mean. It’s an interesting musing on the nature of knowledge and knowability and the questions of whether that kind of things helps you learn anything or get to truth.