The Group: A New York Times Best Seller - Virago Modern Classics (Paperback)

Absorbing, funny, painful . . . I consider it a masterpiece - Hilary Mantel

Shocking, titillating, and acid-laced . . . the book still dazzles as a generational portrait, falters as fiction, and blighted McCarthy's life - Laura Jacobs, Vanity Fair

A brilliant novel: honest, engaging and sharp as a tack - Sarah Waters

McCarthy's characters confront many of the same issues as their modern counterparts: sex and contraception, career and marriage, love and lust, fidelity to one's husband versus loyalty to one's friends and the attempt to carve out a place for oneself unconstrained by the gender limitations of previous generations. Its continuing relevance is one of the book's most extraordinary attributes - Elizabeth Day, Guardian

Few works of literature can genuinely be termed "ahead of their time" - The Times

Juicy, shocking, witty, and almost continually brilliant - Cosmopolitan

Lively, vivid and exceedingly entertaining - Sunday Times

One of my favourite books ever - India Knight

A woman of intellect and style - Celia McGee, New York Times

Her greatest novel . . . marvellous . . . a prophetic book which set the scene . . . for the novels of protest and liberation in the next decade - Independent

Feels like discovering a thrilling secret. Its prose shows a master stylist at work, its aesthetics are striking - all ivory-tipped cigarettes, hand-pureed pâté, Vassar socialists in dungarees - and it has a surprise queer romance that twists the whole narrative into new shape. It's my new standard for a summer read: lavish, hilarious, smart and mean, like a glamorous friend you're torn between fearing and crushing on - Mikaella Clements

Scalpel-keen prose, honed on ruthless wit and insight - Observer

She is a sparkler, a very funny, very savage moralist, and a brilliant mimic - Spectator

This is the book which has aroused considerable advance speculation and well it might; it has a tremendous reader recognition . . . there cannot be much doubt that Mary McCarthy is an exceptional social satirist, with a jackdaw eye and an infallible ear - Kirkus Reviews

McCarthy's dissection of this disparate group - highly educated but powerless in a world of men - is witty and merciless but tinged with sadness. - Daily Mail