Mary McCarthy's contribution to the intellectual life of America was immense and controversial. Both her fiction and non-fiction dared to explore and criticize beliefs central to the nation. This biography probes the public and private worlds of this independent woman whose intelligence, candour and sexual unconventionality made her a unique figure in New York literary circles. An unquenchable commitment to social and moral issues inspired essays, political commentary and nine works of fiction including the novel, "The Group". Privately, a lifelong struggle between duty and desire led to innumerable lovers and four husbands, including, most tempestously, Edmund Wilson. With its creation of life among the literati in New York, Maine, Paris and Rome, its lively portrait of fellow intellectuals including McCarthy's close friend Hannah Arendt, and its evocative details of the historic events of her times, this biography illumines a figure within an outstanding generation.