Mary McGrory was buried in tiny Antrim, N.H., where she summered most of her adult life, as if she had never held stage and sway over a half century as one of Washington’s most respected and brilliant columnists.
This at a time in the 20th century when commentary was the purview of powerful men with pens such as Walter Lippmann, the Alsop brothers and Scotty Reston. They advised presidents, explained foreign policy to the nation and helped set the political agenda in Washington.
Mary, and everyone called her Mary, burst unexpectedly into that crowd as an erudite Irish girl from Boston with a gift for turning politics into poetry with a dash of Yeats and Joyce. (Her mother was German, but that was little known to her admirers.)
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After several lucky breaks, she became one of the dominant liberal voices assessing Washington’s tribal culture as she wore out plenty of shoe leather reporting only what she could see in the halls of Congress and on the presidential campaign hustings.
She became a part of the political courts of aspiring presidents, especially the Kennedys, and picked favorites among the others she covered — Gene McCarthy, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. She always held the Irish, Mr. Reagan excepted, in special favor.
Scorn she reserved for Richard Nixon who, to her everlasting pleasure, put her on his Enemies List. She was never objective, nor did she feel she had to be. She wrote and lived according to her best Irish-Catholic instincts, which were both impetuous yet restrained, especially in matters of the heart. There was no one like her then and no one like her now.
Ms. McGrory was the voice that cut through cocktail chatter at the homes of ambassadors and cut to the bone with presidents, members of Congress and newspaper publishers, including her own. During her long career, which ended in 2004 when she died, she wrote some 8,000 columns that built her a loyal readership.
These were the jewels of a wordsmith, such as her reportage from John F. Kennedy’s funeral: “Of John F. Kennedy’s funeral, it can be said that he would have liked it. It had that decorum and dash that were in his special style.’’ Her commentary on Watergate won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1974.
Before John Norris’ book, ‘’Mary McGrory: The First Queen of Journalism,’’ she was known by her columns, particularly from the collection put together in Phil Gailey’s ”The Best of Mary McGrory: A Half Century of Washington Commentary,’’ published in 2006.
Mr. Norris’ biography is revealing in that his interviewing of peers, friends and family reveal the personal side of Ms. McGrory in all its complexity. It explores the events in her life that she shared with one of her closest confidantes who supported her through numerous romantic assignations and life choices.
Those who knew her, or at least saw her as I did every day, when she finally joined The Washington Post for the last 25 years of her career, had no idea of her intense relationships with men like CBS television broadcaster Blair Clark, who was married, divorced and then remarried while stringing along a lovelorn Mary.
These juicy personal tidbits, which are drawn from troves of family letters — Ms. McGrory’s and Mr. Clark’s as well as copious interviews with family and friends — reveal a longing for love that is almost Victorian, yet based on a very modern concern: Should she marry and risk her career?
Ms. McGrory was no feminist, but she was smart enough to know that the power she held over men — presidents to porters — would not be the same if she became a wife and she might have to quit her job.
Mr. Norris’ book gives us the insight to realize that the girl who could have gone to the convent but instead emerged as trailblazing columnist with a national voice had a challenging, near secret personal life, especially when it came to romance.
Cindy Skrzycki, senior lecturer in the English Department of the University of Pittsburgh, worked for The Washington Post for nearly two decades as a reporter and columnist.
First Published: October 4, 2015, 4:00 a.m.