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Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt & Mary McCarthy

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"Friends" is the operative word in the title of this beautiful volume of letters spanning over the course of thirty years. We get two women, two friends, who happen as well to be two of the best writers of the second half of the 20th century. They are inimate and candid, and let us into the lives of these two writers in a way that biographies do not. They were keenly perecptive about each other's works and loves. MCCarthy has numerous illicent affairs, and four marriages, and we see her grappling with her own desires in her letters to Arendt, who it seems sometimes played intermediary. Arendt is less inclined to let McCarthy, and thus us, into her emotional life, but when she does, it is explosive. Carol Brightman, McCarthy's biographer, has written an illuminating and insightful introduction that gives a brief overview of both women's careers and delves into the physcology of their relationship with each other, a relationship that lasted the test of time, and long periods of seperation. Arendt, based in New York, moved around the states at various distinguished teaching posts, while McCarthy, based in Paris, traveled to Italy, and later Vietnam. The fact that the two intimate corresspondants did not come together more often is the one truly surprising element of their relationship. But it also shows us that some of the best friendships are those carried out through letters.