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Three Short Novels: The Crazy Hunter; The Bridegroom's Body; Decision
Now reissued in The Revised Modern Classics series, Kay Boyle's Three Short Novels can once again startle the unwary reader with their brilliant combination of keen observation, skillfully crafted prose, and moral awareness. In "The Crazy Hunter," the killing of a blind gelding is pivotal in a power struggle between a businesslike mother, a feckless father, and an almost grown daughter. In "The Bridegroom's Body," swans become surrogates for human emotion in a story of suppressed passion and the unquestioned male subjugation of women. "Decision," the only overtly political story in the collection, deals with the liberating power of moral choice—even if the choice means almost certain death—in Franco's Spain. As Robert Smith wrote about Kay Boyle in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Few American writers have written so beautifully of the human condition with a mind that recognizes the limitations of conduct and with a heart that sees the need to test those limits always by love and courage."
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
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291 people want to read
About the author
Kay Boyle
98 books42 followersKay Boyle was a writer of the Lost Generation.
Early years
The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father, Howard Peterson Boyle, was a lawyer, but her greatest influence came from her mother, Katherine Evans, a literary and social activist who believed that the wealthy had an obligation to help the less well off. In later years Kay Boyle championed integration and civil rights. She also advocated banning nuclear weapons, and American withdrawal from the Vietnam War.
Boyle was educated at the exclusive Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, then studied architecture at the Ohio Mechanics Institute in Cincinnati. Interested in the arts, she studied violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music before settling in New York City in 1922 where she found work as a writer/editor with a small magazine.
Marriages and family life
That same year, she met and married a French exchange student, Richard Brault, and they moved to France in 1923. This resulted in her staying in Europe for the better part of the next twenty years. Separated from her husband, she formed a relationship with magazine editor Ernest Walsh, with whom she had a daughter (born after Walsh had died of tuberculosis).
In 1928 she met Laurence Vail, who was then married to Peggy Guggenheim. Boyle and Vail lived together between 1929 until 1932 when, following their divorces, they married. With Vail, she had three more children.
During her years in France, Boyle was associated with several innovative literary magazines and made friends with many of the writers and artists living in Paris around Montparnasse. Among her friends were Harry and Caresse Crosby who owned the Black Sun Press and published her first work of fiction, a collection titled Short Stories. They became such good friends that in 1928 Harry Crosby cashed in some stock dividends to help Boyle pay for an abortion. Other friends included Eugene and Maria Jolas. Kay Boyle also wrote for transition, one of the preeminent literary publications of the day. A poet as well as a novelist, her early writings often reflected her lifelong search for true love as well as her interest in the power relationships between men and women. Kay Boyle's short stories won two O. Henry Awards.
In 1936, she wrote a novel titled Death of a Man, an attack on the growing threat of Nazism, but at that time, no one in America was listening. In 1943, following her divorce from Laurence Vail, she married Baron Joseph von Franckenstein with whom she had two children. After having lived in France, Austria, England, and in Germany after World War II, Boyle returned to the United States.
McCarthyism, later life
In the States, Boyle and her husband were victims of early 1950s McCarthyism. Her husband was dismissed by Roy Cohn from his post in the Public Affairs Division of the U.S. State Department, and Boyle lost her position as foreign correspondent for The New Yorker, a post she had held for six years. She was blacklisted by most of the major magazines. During this period, her life and writing became increasingly political.
In the early 1960s, Boyle and her husband lived in Rowayton, Connecticut, where he taught at a private girls' school. He was then rehired by the State Department and posted to Iran, but died shortly thereafter in 1963.
Boyle was a writer in residence at the New York City Writer's Conference at Wagner College in 1962. In 1963, she accepted a creative writing position on the faculty of San Francisco State College, where she remained until 1979. During this period she became heavily involved in political activism. She traveled to Cambodia in 1966 as part of the "Americans Want to Know" fact-seeking mission. She participated in numerous protests, and in 1967 was arrested twice and imprisoned. In 1968, she signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge,
Early years
The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her father, Howard Peterson Boyle, was a lawyer, but her greatest influence came from her mother, Katherine Evans, a literary and social activist who believed that the wealthy had an obligation to help the less well off. In later years Kay Boyle championed integration and civil rights. She also advocated banning nuclear weapons, and American withdrawal from the Vietnam War.
Boyle was educated at the exclusive Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, then studied architecture at the Ohio Mechanics Institute in Cincinnati. Interested in the arts, she studied violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music before settling in New York City in 1922 where she found work as a writer/editor with a small magazine.
Marriages and family life
That same year, she met and married a French exchange student, Richard Brault, and they moved to France in 1923. This resulted in her staying in Europe for the better part of the next twenty years. Separated from her husband, she formed a relationship with magazine editor Ernest Walsh, with whom she had a daughter (born after Walsh had died of tuberculosis).
In 1928 she met Laurence Vail, who was then married to Peggy Guggenheim. Boyle and Vail lived together between 1929 until 1932 when, following their divorces, they married. With Vail, she had three more children.
During her years in France, Boyle was associated with several innovative literary magazines and made friends with many of the writers and artists living in Paris around Montparnasse. Among her friends were Harry and Caresse Crosby who owned the Black Sun Press and published her first work of fiction, a collection titled Short Stories. They became such good friends that in 1928 Harry Crosby cashed in some stock dividends to help Boyle pay for an abortion. Other friends included Eugene and Maria Jolas. Kay Boyle also wrote for transition, one of the preeminent literary publications of the day. A poet as well as a novelist, her early writings often reflected her lifelong search for true love as well as her interest in the power relationships between men and women. Kay Boyle's short stories won two O. Henry Awards.
In 1936, she wrote a novel titled Death of a Man, an attack on the growing threat of Nazism, but at that time, no one in America was listening. In 1943, following her divorce from Laurence Vail, she married Baron Joseph von Franckenstein with whom she had two children. After having lived in France, Austria, England, and in Germany after World War II, Boyle returned to the United States.
McCarthyism, later life
In the States, Boyle and her husband were victims of early 1950s McCarthyism. Her husband was dismissed by Roy Cohn from his post in the Public Affairs Division of the U.S. State Department, and Boyle lost her position as foreign correspondent for The New Yorker, a post she had held for six years. She was blacklisted by most of the major magazines. During this period, her life and writing became increasingly political.
In the early 1960s, Boyle and her husband lived in Rowayton, Connecticut, where he taught at a private girls' school. He was then rehired by the State Department and posted to Iran, but died shortly thereafter in 1963.
Boyle was a writer in residence at the New York City Writer's Conference at Wagner College in 1962. In 1963, she accepted a creative writing position on the faculty of San Francisco State College, where she remained until 1979. During this period she became heavily involved in political activism. She traveled to Cambodia in 1966 as part of the "Americans Want to Know" fact-seeking mission. She participated in numerous protests, and in 1967 was arrested twice and imprisoned. In 1968, she signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge,
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November 23, 2014This edition of Three Short Novels (six ratings, 2 reviews, now three ; but see also the separate publication of The Crazy Hunter) is published by Beacon Press, about whom I know little. It is also published once by Penguin and once by New Directions. A pretty good pedigree. Boyle is a BURIED author.
But neither Beacon nor Penguin nor New Directions is the focus of this brief comment. Rather, one’s attention should be called toward Virago Press. wikipedia tells me, “A virago is a woman who demonstrates exemplary and heroic qualities.” Kay Boyle has had (at least) three books published by Virago although their current website makes no mention of her ::
Year Before Last
My Next Bride
Plagued by the Nightingale
A list of some 550 books published as Virago Modern Classics can be found at LibraryThing ::
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/inde...
You browsers of second hand shops should familiarize yourselves with their green design, recognize on sight and swing the spade. Much is BURIED here.
Boyle’s three short novels, which read much more like short not-quite novels, I’d identify as something like late and high modernism, the sort which survives the stream-of-consciousness and comes out the other side. Something here felt akin to something from Hawkes, but I’d not say that this era is my strong suite. Short story readers should also learn that she has Fifty Stories and Thirty Stories. Poets will learn that she has Collected Poems of Kay Boyle. She was not small fry in her day. Why she’s BURIED today?
But neither Beacon nor Penguin nor New Directions is the focus of this brief comment. Rather, one’s attention should be called toward Virago Press. wikipedia tells me, “A virago is a woman who demonstrates exemplary and heroic qualities.” Kay Boyle has had (at least) three books published by Virago although their current website makes no mention of her ::
Year Before Last
My Next Bride
Plagued by the Nightingale
A list of some 550 books published as Virago Modern Classics can be found at LibraryThing ::
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/inde...
You browsers of second hand shops should familiarize yourselves with their green design, recognize on sight and swing the spade. Much is BURIED here.
Boyle’s three short novels, which read much more like short not-quite novels, I’d identify as something like late and high modernism, the sort which survives the stream-of-consciousness and comes out the other side. Something here felt akin to something from Hawkes, but I’d not say that this era is my strong suite. Short story readers should also learn that she has Fifty Stories and Thirty Stories. Poets will learn that she has Collected Poems of Kay Boyle. She was not small fry in her day. Why she’s BURIED today?
August 18, 2015
The Crazy Hunter
The adults in Nan’s world define life according to purpose, aims, goals, usefulness. If the blind horse in the barn is of no use then what is the purpose of its existence? Nan is steeped in the belief that the blind horse being able to run with the fillies is more than sufficient.
Boyle’s sleek slide into changing POV’s calculates different existences of reality. Nan’s is different than her parents or the groom-the adult world. She is willing to stand by it, fight for it, rather than joining theirs on a peripheral basis. It is both a rebellion but more so a statement of distinction of her world. This is a battle of immense proportions that Boyle compresses down into it essence.
Her father has no, use. Externally. Admittedly a coward, a failed painter he does not participate in the running of the household or the lands and animals. All is left to his wife who accepts it or is transformed by it. It fits too easily this dance they do, each following the prescribed steps, repeated over and again, its regularity overcoming their narrowed existence. They both must stick to the concrete and practical. Anything as abstract as Nan offers is a threat. A clear DRFB (Don’t Rock the Fucking Boat.) This is no small thing. It is a battle for survival even at the cost of their daughter’s future?
Mother fears for Nan, is fearful of her and her differing perception of reality which is the beginning of Nan’s separation into an individual self (mother never did or didn’t complete it), free of any familial all consuming dance. How dare she. Without her the dance may well collapse. The band stops their music or begins anew with an arrangement which they don’t know the steps or possibly do not have the abilities to learn. Nan? Is on the boundaries’ tip freeing herself to step away or cursed to react to rebellions call.
Kaye Boyle’s secret is the use of detail that furthers her narrative and sweeps the reader into its passion. She slides inside characters minds where it is hard to recall being outside. They are not observations coming from the authors pen. One is within the mind finding points of assimilation, kindred spirits, or the experience of residing within someone else’s world. An opportunity to learn and understand another’s existence .
The Bridegroom’s Body
Boyle creates the visual through the sounds of her words blending in their rhythm, her brushstroke. Each word carries the uncovering of further meaning.
“… the whole restless malevolent estate abandoned to the willfulness of wind and rain and the seabirds’ scavenging and to the willfulness of purely male desire.”
Another story of a woman isolated, taken for granted by an idle husband and left to fend for both. The silent unspoken cruelty. She evokes tone, the oozing of dread. I felt its initial mild currents below, its gradual increase which would lead to a sound reasonable conclusion. Then, I found myself in the center of a conflagration. Flames bursting and climbing around me with all avenues of escape cut off. Trapped but at the same time staring in awe at its eviscerating claws of beauty. Its trenchant heat bearing down. It is a lit fuse waiting to go off. A fast paced book.
The Decision
What will he do? Already he may well be jailed for his political activities. A woman is sent by his sister with papers which will get him safely across the Spanish border and into France. There he will not be jailed or watched. He may freely lead a customary life. Will that, for him be living? Will it provide meaning, purpose? First they must find him among the Resistance clamor. There is only so much time. As it passes the woman with the papers is told about and educated, experiences for herself, what is real life for the Spanish people. Different from hers. Which then is real? Who and what is Manuel? If found and offered what will he do?
What Boyle’s does is in The Decision is to create a perfect pace. In her sure steady hands she bestows the confidence that allows my gentle fall into the story, its images and gestures. Each detail builds into intrigue, suspense, carefully crafting the developing stack. A dark story of allegiance to a cause, country, versus allegiance to freedom. A story which moves furtively in the dark. Its elegance and fine perception belies the quickness of the stories heartbeat. Mesmerizing. A dank dark foreboding encased within each articulate precise word thrusting the narrative forward. A confluence where each affects each and all else. She is a master of tone that the reader resides within.
These short novels revolve around the common theme of staid well coiffed characters and what lurks and sizzles beneath. In the hands of Boyle they form the range of the interstices of poetic verse to excruciating suspense. Not reading Kay Boyle would be not immersing yourself into the artistic expression joining realities of others, and the opportunity of the independent exploring of ones own. As with Nan, Boyle never falters or backs away from what she has to say. She leads by example. A profound artist at her work not setting out this way or that, allowing the creation to create her, thread through the mastery of her skills. She is the epitome of human strength. Reading these novels is to carry boldness within your hands.
An outpouring of gratefulness to Proustitue for recommending this gem as well as following Nathan “N.R.” Gaddis and his literary adventures.
January 30, 2015
My first of hers, and certainly not my last.
Pitch-perfect Modernism, with a great sense of the Natural World and the flutterings of the unconscious. As with her peers (Richardson, Loy, Barnes, H.D, Rhys. Bryher, Benson etc) unjustly and unforgivably neglected by both the reading public and the Academy.
Her work can be found second hand for mere pennies. You therefore have no excuse for not reading it.
Pitch-perfect Modernism, with a great sense of the Natural World and the flutterings of the unconscious. As with her peers (Richardson, Loy, Barnes, H.D, Rhys. Bryher, Benson etc) unjustly and unforgivably neglected by both the reading public and the Academy.
Her work can be found second hand for mere pennies. You therefore have no excuse for not reading it.
July 30, 2016
Breakdown:
The Crazy Hunter: 3.5 stars
The Bridegroom's Death: 2.5 stars ( I didn't much care for the subject, too Lawrencian for me.)
Decision: 5 stars
February 26, 2008
"The Crazy Hunter" in this collection that includes "The Bridegroom's Body" and "Decision" rates six stars. It's perfect. Three quarters of the way through it, I had to put it down to teach a class, and I speculated as to how it would end for four hours until I could get back to it. I'd thought of three possibilities, but Boyle masterfully chose another. The other two are well worth reading, too. Although I'd read Boyle before, I was curious to know more about her and looked her up on the Internet. Her life was much like her stories. I'd like to have met her.
January 21, 2020
Boyle's poetic and insightful renderings of life are more accessible than Woolf and Joyce and more beautiful than Faulkner--perhaps because of gendered perceptions that weave their way in to the stories. The Crazy Hunter and The Bridegroom's Body, especially, are poignant tales for the soul and should be ready by any animal lovers.
July 4, 2022
I commented on The Crazy Hunter in a separate review under that specific title. The Bridegroom's Body was just ok, IMO. Decision was the best of the three, but so very depressing. Boyle is a fantastic writer, but this was very likely NOT the book I should be reading in these terrible times.
August 22, 2020
3 1/2 stars
January 3, 2023
this is now a Kay Boyle stan account
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April 29, 2023The Crazy Hunter: 4⭐️
The Bridegroom’s Body: 4⭐️
Decision: 3⭐️
The Bridegroom’s Body: 4⭐️
Decision: 3⭐️
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews