McGARRY, Jean 1952-

PERSONAL: Born June 18, 1952, in Providence, RI; daughter of Frank and Deborah (Sklover) McGarry. Education: Harvard University, A.B., 1970; Johns Hopkins University, M.A., 1983.

ADDRESSES: Home—100 West University Parkway, Baltimore, MD 21210. Office—The Writing Seminars, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21210. Agent—Helen Brann, 157 West 57th St., New York, NY 10019.

CAREER: Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, lecturer in English, 1983-85; University of Missouri—Columbia, assistant professor of English, 1985-86; George Washington University, Washington, DC, associate professor of English, 1986-87; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, affiliated with writing seminars, 1988—.

AWARDS, HONORS: Short Fiction Prize from Southern Review, 1985, for Airs of Providence; Pushcart Prize, 1987, for "World with a Hard K"; grants from National Endowment for the Arts, 1987.

WRITINGS:

Airs of Providence (short stories), Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1985.

The Very Rich Hours (novel), Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1987.

The Courage of Girls, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 1992.

Jean McGarry Reading from Her Fiction (sound recording), Raft, 1993.

Home at Last, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1994.

Gallagher's Travels, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1997.

Dream Date (short stories), Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 2002.

Contributor to periodicals, including New Yorker and Yale Review.

SIDELIGHTS: Jean McGarry, a fiction writer and instructor, splits her publications between novels and story collections. In the former category is The Courage of Girls, in which McGarry creates "a lively novel" centered on "so quiet a character" as Loretta Costello St. Cyr, according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Loretta, married to an academic, is a resident of New York City; the woman's depression following a miscarriage compels her to leave her husband and live with an aunt and uncle who acted as Loretta's parents after her own died when she was nine. The Publishers Weekly contributor lauded McGarry's "deftly drawn characters" who "give this poignant novel its vibrancy." The title character of McGarry's 1997 novel Gallagher's Travels is Caff Gallagher, a newly minted college journalist, who joins the staff of the Wampanoag, Rhode Island, Times, penning pieces for the Women's Page. But her ambition moves the young woman to big-city Michigan, where she must struggle again in the soft features while chasing the big stories. A Publishers Weekly reviewer pointed to "pithy but uninspired prose" in this novel, though Library Journal critic Mary Margaret Benson had a more positive reaction, calling McGarry's writing "often gritty and terse but also ironically humorous."

The Rhode Island setting of Gallagher's Travels is also spotlighted in Home at Last, a book of short stories. Indeed, the author refers to specific locals in the Providence and Pawtucket environs in relating "incisive portraits of men and women, boys and girls; riveting details that surround the characters, their crises, and their environments," in the view Thomas Gullason, reviewing the book for Studies in Short Fiction. Gullason found a story titled "The Raft" as "one of the best … both haunting and touching in its depiction of his father's suicide on ten-year-old Jimmy McGinnis." McGarry's 2002 collection, Dream Date, includes such tales as "Among the Philistines," in which an arrogant professor gets his just desserts during a disastrous dinner party. In "Body and Soul," an extramarital affair takes a poignant turn when a man discovers his paramour has cancer. The book showcases the author's ability to "[observe] life from both male and female viewpoints with asexual agility," according to Booklist's Carol Haggas. A Kirkus Reviews writer likewise felt that "McGarry is equally comfortable in the voices of men and women," and decided that "it's hard to find a weak link" in Dream Date.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

American Book Review, November, 1987, review of The Very Rich Hours, p. 16.

Belles Lettres, fall, 1988, review of The Very Rich Hours, p. 11.

Best Sellers, March, 1986, review of Airs of Providence, p. 444.

Booklist, May 15, 1987, review of The Very Rich Hours, p. 1409; April 15, 1992, review of The Courage of Girls, p. 1503; May 1, 2002, Carol Haggas, review of Dream Date, p. 1509.

Georgia Review, winter, 1994, review of Home at Last, p. 800.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1987, review of The Very Rich Hours, p. 584; March 1, 1992, review of The Courage of Girls, p. 275; June 15, 1997, review of Gallagher's Travels, p. 900; May 1, 2002, review of Dream Date, p. 604.

Library Journal, August, 1977, Mary Margaret Benson, review of Gallagher's Travels, p. 132; April 1, 1992, review of The Courage of Girls, p. 148; May 1, 1994, review of Home at Last, p. 140; February 15, 1998, review of Gallagher's Travels, p. 196.

New Yorker, November 9, 1987, review of The Very Rich Hours, p. 155.

New York Times Book Review, October 11, 1987, review of The Very Rich Hours, p. 56; June 28, 1992, review of The Courage of Girls, p. 18.

North American Review, March, 1986, review of Airs of Providence, p. 69.

Publishers Weekly, May 8, 1987, review of The Very Rich Hours, p. 61; March 2, 1992, review of The Courage of Girls, p. 50; March 28, 1994, review of Home at Last, p. 92; July 7, 1997, review of Gallagher's Travels, p. 51; June 24, 2002, review of Dream Date.

Studies in Short Fiction, summer, 1986, review of Airs of Providence, p. 331; winter, 1988, review of The Very Rich Hours, p. 83; summer, 1996, Thomas Gullason, review of Home at Last, p. 435.

Times Literary Supplement, May 29, 1992, review of The Courage of Girls, p. 21.

Village Voice Literary Supplement, May, 1992, review of The Courage of Girls, p. 7.

Women's Review of Books, July, 1992, review of The Very Rich Hours, Airs of Providence, and The Courage of Girls, p. 328.*