Collected together here in one volume, and now newly reissued as an ebook, the book stars well but soon heads downhill. The first part, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood is relatively compelling, describing as it does Mary McCarthy’s early difficult years after the death of her parents and gives an evocative picture of an intelligent and precocious child battling against surroundings in which she is never at home. The second volume, How I Grew, continues the story of her education and becomes increasingly tedious as she describes all the people she met and interacted with, the vast majority of whom mean nothing to most readers and who are instantly forgettable. The last volume, Intellectual Memoirs, New York, 1936-1938 is of interest from a biographical viewpoint but unfortunately McCarthy doesn’t come across as a particularly pleasant or empathetic character and I found her life, although interesting up to a point, not one in which I felt at all engaged. So a useful book to learn more about her but not a particularly absorbing read.