Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy games thanks to Tim Hayward

thanks to Tim Hayward

Anthony Grafton's wonderfully original book discusses the careers of men who somehow managed to be both figures of startling genius and - by some measures - credulous or worse

The million-copy bestseller

Worse still

Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy games thanks to Tim HaywardBlending memories and family myths, Mary McCarthy takes us back to the 1920s, when she was orphaned into a world of relations as colourful, potent and mysterious as the Catholic religion. There was her Catholic grandmother who combined piousness with pugnacity, and her veiled Jewish grandmother who mourned the disastrous effects of a face lift; there was wicked Uncle Myers who beat her for the good of her soul, and Aunt Margaret who laced her orange