She had her say, but I never knew anyone who gave so much pleasure to those around her. Her wit, great learning, her gardening, her blueberry pancakes, beautiful houses. None of that would be of more than passing interest if it were not that she worked as a master of the art of writing every day of her life. How it was done, I do not know.

Elizabeth Hardwick, in her foreword to Mary McCarthy’s posthumously published third memoir, “Intellectual Memoirs: New York 1936-1938” (published 1991).