Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

Tracing her moral struggles to the day she accidentally took a sip of water before her Communion—a mortal sin—Mary McCarthy gives us eight funny and heartrending essays about the illusive and redemptive nature of memory “ During the course of writing this, I’ve often wished that I were writing fiction .” Originally published in large part as standalone essays in the New Yorker and Harper’s Bazaar , Mary McCarthy’s acclaimed memoir begins with her recollections of a happy childhood cut tragically