A BOLT FROM THE BLUE AND OTHER

Is there a moment in this new collection of her essays where Mary McCarthy falters, says something passe, ill-founded, or silly? If so, this reviewer couldn’t find it. On topics ranging from women’s magazines to Watergate, classic novels to contemporary plays, McCarthy is clever and relentless. She may be better known for her fiction (The Group), but these essays are really the best showcase for her intelligence and inability to suffer foolishness in art or in politics. As she says in the beginning of a piece called ”My Confession,” ”Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.” What a pleasure to see through McCarthy’s once more.