Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy
| Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy | |
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| Category: Autobiography | |
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Reviewer: Heather Magee
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| Summary: A deeply personal memoir depicting troubled memories from a troubled childhood. Orphaned at a young age, Mary McCarthy shares her dampened memories which she subjects to constant scrutiny, a strange yet effective method in life writing. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 264 | Date: March 2025 |
| Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1804271650 | |
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Mary McCarthy describes herself as an amateur architect, obsessively digging into the past to piece together the broken mosaic of her life. She attributes her burning interest in the past to her orphanhood, as she lacked any second-hand memories from her parents, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. This memoir chronicles her early years, beginning with her orphanhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she lived under the harsh guardianship of her late father's Irish Catholic parents and her abusive Uncle Myers and Aunt Margaret. Later, she moved to Seattle to live with her maternal grandparents—her grandmother being Jewish and her grandfather Presbyterian—who provided her with a different kind of upbringing.
McCarthy recounts her time at a Catholic convent school, which she remembers fondly despite experiencing occasional unkindness from her peers. It was during this period that she began to experience a crisis of faith, boldly questioning her teachers on contradictions in the creation story and the New Testament. I particularly appreciated how she framed her loss of faith as the dramatic climax of her life's story—a pivotal event that shaped her identity and influenced the way she constructed her narrative.
In fact, this is an unusual memoir in that it calls its own form into question: recalling becomes revisiting as Mary McCarthy leads us through various important sites of memory and interrogates the veracity of her prose. Though it may contain traces of fictionality, her admission of some alterations make it even more personal as the reader can see what the author has changed and why she has changed it. As a result, we don't just understand McCarthy's past; we understand her relationship with it, and we understand her more as an author, too. Her prose is undeniably sophisticated and so carefully constructed. I was struck by how perfectly each word choice slotted into sentence after sentence, creating the kind of satisfaction produced when seemingly unsuited puzzle pieces fit together.
This is a fascinating and painfully honest book. The most difficult part to get through for me, apart from the descriptions of abuse from Uncle Myers when the McCarthy children were still young, was the chapter focussing on her maternal grandmother. It was a difficult read, partly because she explicitly states that her grandmother would've hated to be written about, so the reader has the impression of betrayal. Mostly, it was because of how raw and grotesque the depiction of her grandmother is. Interestingly, and revealingly, this is the only chapter without a concluding section discussing what might and might not be objectively true - McCarthy remembers it all too vividly. Her grandmother's body is the tangible fabric that holds these memories in place. She tries to make sense of her, unlike any other character in her life.
As such a central part of her life (and indeed as a key feature of the title), I would've loved to learn more about McCarthy's departure from the Catholic Church, as it was mainly attributed to a sort of childlike denial that could not be extinguished. If this was the case, how did it carry through to her adult life? It would have been interesting to explore this further. Overall though, this was a self-conscious, revelatory, and intimate memoir stained with tragedy, yet illuminated by moments of resilience and self-discovery, offering readers an insight into the complexities of faith, family, and personal growth.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag.
Closing Time by Joe Queenan explores similar themes of growing up Catholic, and in difficult circumstances.
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