The Group by Mary McCarthy: a podcast book club.

Is The Group the Greatest Novel About Female Friendship?

Is The Group the Greatest Novel About Female Friendship?

Discussing new and classic works.
Feb. 6 2014 7:37 PM

The Audio Book Club on The Group

Our critics discuss Mary McCarthy’s influential 1963 novel about female friends in New York City.

To listen to the Audio Book Club discussion of The Group, click the arrow on the player below.

This month, Slate senior editors Emily Bazelon and David Haglund are joined by Slate cultural critic Meghan O’Rourke for a discussion of Mary McCarthy’s The Group. The 50th anniversary of the novel recently passed, and our critics decided to reread the hugely influential—and, in its own time, quite controversial—story of eight friends from Vassar, class ’33.

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Next month brings the live Audio Book Club with Hugh Howey. We’ll be discussing Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Read Howey’s piece on writing Vonnegut fan fiction, pick up a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, and join us next month for our conversation.

Visit our Audio Book Club archive page for a complete list of the more than 60 books we’ve discussed over the years. Or you can listen to any of our previous club meetings through our iTunes feed.

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Podcast produced by Abdul Rufus and Andy Bowers.

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and the author of Sticks and Stones.

David Haglund is the literary editor of NewYorker.com. 

Meghan O’Rourke is Slate’s culture critic and an advisory editor. She was previously an editor at the New Yorker. The Long Goodbye, a memoir about her mother’s death, is now out in paperback.