Book Description How I Grew explores the young adulthood of Mary McCarthy, one of the most outspoken and prominent intellectuals of the twentieth century. Focusing on eight formative years of her life—from high school in the Seattle area through college at Vassar—McCarthy reveals a girl by turns vulnerable, independent, dramatic, lonely, inquisitive, romantic, demonstrably bright, and uncommonly daring. In candid, often intimate detail, How IGrew recounts McCarthy’s early attempts at writing; her relationships with teachers, family, and friends; a melodramatic flirtation with suicide; and experiences as dissimilar as her first joband her first seduction. A natural companion to the much-praised Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, this is a remarkable personalchronicle, an utterly convincing self-portrait, and a superb...