Why The Group is still worth reading

Mary McCarthy's The Group (1963) becomes ever darker and increasingly frightening as it builds toward a powerful conclusion - a terrifying look at the fates and fortunes of 8 Vassar grads ('33), intelligent and attractive young women who at the start of the novel have bright futures ahead (and all but one are from wealthy and well-established families) but at the end several of the women are divorced (and not particularly happy in 2nd marriages), only one (the literary agent, Libby) established in a meaningful career, the young mothers bitter and insecure and arguing about various methods of child-rearing while being at times cruel or indifferent to their children, embittered by politics, frightened by the impending war (the novel ends in 1940), and, most disturbing, we focus on Kay, the closest to a central character (the book began w/ he wedding to Harald) held in a mental hospital against her will, put there in an act of spite and cruelty by her unfaithful, brutal, narcissistic husband. Spoilers to follow: MMcM brings the novel full circle in the last chapter, ending with Kay's suicide, as she jumps (or maybe falls, that's the cover story anyway) from a 20th-floor window in the Vassar club - allegedly she was scanning the skies for German aircraft. As the remaining women gather for the funeral one member of the group who has been absent over the course of the novel, Lakey, returns from Europe - fleeing the Nazi occupations - with a Baroness, and her cohort all at once realize that the glamorous Lakey is a Lesbian. This realization leads to a bitter scene between Harald, the ex who virtually crashes the funeral service, and Lakey, w/ which the novel concludes. It's all too easy to dismiss this novel as out of date or a potboiler/best seller/women's novel, and it's all of the above to a degree but also none of the above: Even today, a half-century after publication (at which time it was already a period piece), it's still a smart and disturbing novel that gives us insight into its own time of course but also into the mind of the author (not that any one of the Group is an MMcM avatar - they are each a part of her, I think) and the brutalities of sexual politics - obviously still a significant topic and issue. I will quibble and say that I wish there was at least one good man in this entire opus, but be that as it may - MMcM had a sharp wit and unflinching gaze at each of her characters, all of them troubled, each in her own way.