THE GROVES OF ACADEME

by Mary McCarthy ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

The scalpel style of The Company She Keeps. The Oasis, and Cast A Cold Eye is applied to the academic-political scene an Jocelyn College, seemingly a hybrid of Beanington and Sarah Lawrence, in the setting for a satiric seminar. Henry Mulcahy, the brilliant Joycann professor of literature, presides over his students who are to be ""free, spontaneous, and co-educational"". Mulcahy has a wife Cathy and four young children, and their home is so vibrantly (mal)odorous that students refuse to baby sit. When the liberal collage President Maynard Hear decides to fire Henry because of budget difficulties, Henry balks and falsely attributes a dangerous disease to his wife and declares himself a Communist. There are many tangential discussions among the faculty who air their views on academic freedom, prejudice, etc...An incisive, intellectual exercise, although for some Miss McCarthy's cataloguing of personal and ideological foibles may become monotonous. This navel had its beginnings as a short story in the New Yorker.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 1412812623

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt, Brace

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1952

Categories: FICTION