By Hillary Frey 5/15/07 6:43pm

Beloved Brooke: Third Mrs. Astor, First Lady of New York

A young person who’s just moved to New York can hardly ignore the name Astor. It spans only one block, but Astor Place is frequently invoked by 23-year-olds, as it connects Broadway to St. Marks Place, the enduringly hip East Village destination. THE LAST MRS. ASTOR: A NEW YORK STORY
By Frances Kiernan
Norton, Read More

By Adam Kirsch 3/27/00 12:00am

Adam Kirsch Pipes Up on a Biography of Mary McCarthy

Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy , by Frances Kiernan. W.W. Norton & Company, 845 pages, $35.

Mary McCarthy was a tactician of scandal; she had a sure sense of just how much would be good for her. She learned this early on. In her freshman English class at Vassar, students’ papers were Read More