The Seventeenth Degree: How It Went, Vietnam, Hanoi, Medina, Sons of the Morning

by Mary McCarthy

Mary McCarthy (1912-1989) was an American novelist, critic and political activist, best known for her novel THE GROUP, her marriage to critic Edmund Wilson, and her storied feud with playwright Lillian Hellman. Between 1967 and 1972, Mary McCarthy published three small books on the war in Vietnam. These were at once reports, commentaries, and polemics. They described a central event of our time seen with a novelist’s eye for character and event. VIETNAM, HANOI, and MEDINA were originally conceived as pamphlets. They are now brought together with two new essays in a substantial volume. A long autobiographical essay, which appears here for the first time, reveals with a touching candor the personal costs that lay behind the writing of the earlier works. Mary McCarthy has, indeed, not written in such a vein since her famous MEMORIES OF A CATHOLIC GIRLHOOD. The volume concludes with “Sons of the Morning”, a much discussed critique of David Halberstam’s otherwise popular book THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST.

Genres: Nonfiction

451 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1974

About the author

People note American writer Mary Therese McCarthy for her sharp literary criticism and satirical fiction, including the novels The Groves of Academe (1952) and The Group (1963).

McCarthy studied at Vassar college in Poughkeepsie, New York and graduated in 1933. McCarthy moved to city of New York and incisively wrote as a known contributor to publications such as the Nation, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books. Her debut novel, The Company She Keeps (1942), initiated her ascent to the most celebrated writers of her generation; the publication of her autobiography Memories of a Catholic Girlhood in 1957 bolstered this reputation.

This literary critic authored more than two dozen books, including the now-classic novel The Group , the New York Times bestseller in 1963.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McC...

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

McCarthy went to Vietnam twice in 1967 and this is a collection of her reporting from there, as well as some supplementary essays. Good descriptions of day-to-day life in Vietnam, a sometimes tenuous hold on the larger political details, though very informative and quite uncannily echoes our current occupation of Iraq. Thank god I liked it, or else I'd be out of a thesis topic...

[Brian Page · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up The Seventeenth Degree by Mary McCarthy after hearing about Michelle Dean‘s new book, Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion and wondering if McCarthy’s commentary on the U. S. involvement in the American War in Vietnam has stood the test of time. Short answer: yes. Her analysis is spot-on in the light of history and even relevant for today, vis-à-vis current conflicts from which the United States seems unable to extricate itself. “In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons…” (p.156)

The Seventeenth Degree is a collection of McCarthy’s short works, longer than long-form journalism and shorter than typical books. This in-betweenness even created problems when the tracts were originally published. The collection consists of five different works. The first section, “How it Went,” is terrible. Skip it; or read it last if you must. This piece is nothing more than McCarthy blathering about how wonderful she is and how hard it was for her to work; and name dropping; there’s plenty of name dropping. The sections on “Vietnam” and “Hanoi” constitute the meat of the book and are well worth reading. The piece on “Medina,” where she covered the Army trial of Captain Ernest Lou Medina regarding the My Lai Massacre of 16 March 1968, is interesting but is now yesterday’s news.

The final chapter, “Sons of the Morning” is McCarthy’s scathing review of David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest. Her review created quite a bit of controversy at the time. For me, however, if you read between the lines, and not very deeply at that, I think her chief objection to The Best and the Brightest was that she didn’t write it. The American involvement in Vietnam was her territory and how dare this brash Halberstam trespass.