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Death of a Man: A Novel
When Death of a Man was first published in 1936, the anonymous reviewer in Time described the novel as a "Nazi idyll." Nothing could be further from the truth. Boyle, who lived in the town of Kitzbühel in the Tirolean Alps during the mid 30s, recalls that "In 1934, mothers, fathers, children―all barefoot―stood in the ankle-deep snow on the sidewalks of Vienna, their hands out-stretched for help .... Nazism as to them mutely accepted as the one hope for the economy." The subtlety and precision honed by Boyle in her acclaimed short stories are used in Death of a Man to describe the tragedy of a society pushed to the edge by circumstance but as yet unaware of the dangers, the incipient evil, of the course it is choosing. In this setting, the passionate relationship between the appealing and vigorous but pro-Nazi Dr. Prochaska and the pampered, neurotic American young woman Pendennis, is a paradigm of the difficulty of individual love in a disordered world.
338 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
2 people are currently reading
117 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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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 22, 2011
Maybe it's the sunshine and the summer (not likely though) but I just couldn't muster up a lot of interest in Death of a Man. I'm normally all about a novel that questions why people supported the rise of Hitler. Normally the question of how normal, 'good' people were so erroneously mislead (or dazzled) gets my old brain churning but this time, nothing. No substantial thoughts.
I think the 'death' in the title is the death of the main characters freedom because of his alignment with the rising Nazi's in Austria. I think we were supposed to think how tragic he is, because he's this good doctor who brings toys to sick children and believes that by supporting the clandestine Nazi party he is helping to further the cause of freedom in his country. Freedom is a bullshit word though, and I think it's a knee-jerk leftist reaction to see this character as a tragic figure. He does believe in freedom, and the freedom he sees is the freedom being offered in the spewing rhetoric of Hitler. Just take a listen to Conservative talk-radio and half of what Limbaugh and Co. rant and rave about is Obama taking away our freedom, and how they represent the freedom lovers who want governments hands off, unless it would be to legislate something like a woman's choice to end a pregnancy, same-sex marriage, or the legality of warrant-less invasions of privacy or a host of other unfreedoms that the right champions for. And the same can be said for the left. Those windbags on the AM dial have a point, there are freedoms that the liberals would like to take away from people, it is just different freedoms than the conservatives would like to legislate.
But using the word freedom is a densely packed tangle that essentially means nothing except to the partisans of which ever party is speaking.
The writing in this book is kind of breezy and that is good for capturing the landscape of the high-altitude Austrian mountains but I don't think it worked in creating the proper sense that this book needed to really work. An early reviewer of the book called it a "Nazi Idyll", and other critics have taken shots at the book as being pro-Nazi, or crypto-fascist or whatever, and in a way they have a point. It's not that Boyle creates too sympathetic of a character in the at Nazi doctor, it's that her writing achieves the tone of rugged outdoorsy purity that the Nazi's used in their mythos and propaganda. Her scenes felt like they could have been out-takes from some of the early parts of Triumph of the Will. I'm thinking that some of the critical lobs and Adorno and Horkheimer threw at Hamsun's novels could also be shot towards this book (with the big difference that Hamsun was an avowed member of the Hitler Fan Club and drooled all over the thought of anything Adolf, Boyle wasn't a fascist and as far as I know she is planted firmly on the left).
Breezy and inevitably probably unmemorable.
I think the 'death' in the title is the death of the main characters freedom because of his alignment with the rising Nazi's in Austria. I think we were supposed to think how tragic he is, because he's this good doctor who brings toys to sick children and believes that by supporting the clandestine Nazi party he is helping to further the cause of freedom in his country. Freedom is a bullshit word though, and I think it's a knee-jerk leftist reaction to see this character as a tragic figure. He does believe in freedom, and the freedom he sees is the freedom being offered in the spewing rhetoric of Hitler. Just take a listen to Conservative talk-radio and half of what Limbaugh and Co. rant and rave about is Obama taking away our freedom, and how they represent the freedom lovers who want governments hands off, unless it would be to legislate something like a woman's choice to end a pregnancy, same-sex marriage, or the legality of warrant-less invasions of privacy or a host of other unfreedoms that the right champions for. And the same can be said for the left. Those windbags on the AM dial have a point, there are freedoms that the liberals would like to take away from people, it is just different freedoms than the conservatives would like to legislate.
But using the word freedom is a densely packed tangle that essentially means nothing except to the partisans of which ever party is speaking.
The writing in this book is kind of breezy and that is good for capturing the landscape of the high-altitude Austrian mountains but I don't think it worked in creating the proper sense that this book needed to really work. An early reviewer of the book called it a "Nazi Idyll", and other critics have taken shots at the book as being pro-Nazi, or crypto-fascist or whatever, and in a way they have a point. It's not that Boyle creates too sympathetic of a character in the at Nazi doctor, it's that her writing achieves the tone of rugged outdoorsy purity that the Nazi's used in their mythos and propaganda. Her scenes felt like they could have been out-takes from some of the early parts of Triumph of the Will. I'm thinking that some of the critical lobs and Adorno and Horkheimer threw at Hamsun's novels could also be shot towards this book (with the big difference that Hamsun was an avowed member of the Hitler Fan Club and drooled all over the thought of anything Adolf, Boyle wasn't a fascist and as far as I know she is planted firmly on the left).
Breezy and inevitably probably unmemorable.
March 14, 2019
Good novels have well-developed characters, a story that interests and prose that suits. They don’t need to go any deeper than that. Great novels share these same “good novel” qualities, but they do much more. Their characters have symbolic dimension(s); their stories resonate; their prose makes us stop and re-read entire paragraphs instead of just plunging ever onward toward resolution. Great novels are prismatic and can be analyzed on multiple levels.
Death of a Man is a great novel. Sadly, it’s also a “buried novel”. Not many have read it. One reason for this could be the fact that many of its original reviewers mistakenly interpreted it as expressing pro-Nazi sentiment. This misinterpretation is forgivable if you consider the complex character of Dr. Prochaska, the male protagonist, in a certain light. He is presented as charismatic, extremely handsome (as Boyle’s male leads always are), and kind to children. Here’s the rub: he is also a Nazi-sympathizer. Being well left of center herself, it must have been interesting for Boyle to explore the psychology of his character. Assuming Boyle’s own strongly anti-Fascist political identity wasn’t as widely known at this point in her writing career, reviewers in 1936 probably weren’t primed to look for her deeper message the way contemporary readers should be. Also, Boyle is a shower of stories rather than a teller of them and, even today, those who aren’t close readers might miss the message entirely (as at least one Goodreads reviewer apparently did). The meaning of this novel rests in its plot and the fate of its characters, not in the characters themselves.
This is my favorite novel by Boyle so far and also my favorite read of the year at this point. She’s in full control of her craft here and her prose is sheer genius: extremely cinematic, poetic yet muscular, beautiful yet ugly, modernist and cryptic at times yet not at all obtuse.
My favorite character was Sister Resi and my favorite scenes were those set in Infektionhaus: a place “where the diseases of the flesh may flower or fade in isolation”. Speaking of Infektionhaus, watch for the Nazi birds that haunt its grounds.
“The convalescent smallpox cases … throw crumbs to the birds who wait without pity, cannibals of the soul itself were it relinquished to them, in the shadow of the high imprisoning wall.”
“The mountains around are high and shaped with rock, bold and shelterless enough to have cast claw, wing and birdcall from them into the paradise of the hospital’s deep insect-swarming grass. Early in the day the butterflies rise up from it and the hundreds of birds swoop out of the trees, crying aloud, and clear the air with their hunger. They come to the sills, the blackbirds and the thrushes, with strips of pale blue butterfly wing or yellow rags of what they have just caught flying hanging still uneaten from their beaks.”
Death of a Man is a great novel. Sadly, it’s also a “buried novel”. Not many have read it. One reason for this could be the fact that many of its original reviewers mistakenly interpreted it as expressing pro-Nazi sentiment. This misinterpretation is forgivable if you consider the complex character of Dr. Prochaska, the male protagonist, in a certain light. He is presented as charismatic, extremely handsome (as Boyle’s male leads always are), and kind to children. Here’s the rub: he is also a Nazi-sympathizer. Being well left of center herself, it must have been interesting for Boyle to explore the psychology of his character. Assuming Boyle’s own strongly anti-Fascist political identity wasn’t as widely known at this point in her writing career, reviewers in 1936 probably weren’t primed to look for her deeper message the way contemporary readers should be. Also, Boyle is a shower of stories rather than a teller of them and, even today, those who aren’t close readers might miss the message entirely (as at least one Goodreads reviewer apparently did). The meaning of this novel rests in its plot and the fate of its characters, not in the characters themselves.
This is my favorite novel by Boyle so far and also my favorite read of the year at this point. She’s in full control of her craft here and her prose is sheer genius: extremely cinematic, poetic yet muscular, beautiful yet ugly, modernist and cryptic at times yet not at all obtuse.
My favorite character was Sister Resi and my favorite scenes were those set in Infektionhaus: a place “where the diseases of the flesh may flower or fade in isolation”. Speaking of Infektionhaus, watch for the Nazi birds that haunt its grounds.
“The convalescent smallpox cases … throw crumbs to the birds who wait without pity, cannibals of the soul itself were it relinquished to them, in the shadow of the high imprisoning wall.”
“The mountains around are high and shaped with rock, bold and shelterless enough to have cast claw, wing and birdcall from them into the paradise of the hospital’s deep insect-swarming grass. Early in the day the butterflies rise up from it and the hundreds of birds swoop out of the trees, crying aloud, and clear the air with their hunger. They come to the sills, the blackbirds and the thrushes, with strips of pale blue butterfly wing or yellow rags of what they have just caught flying hanging still uneaten from their beaks.”
September 22, 2007
It took me three times looking at the back cover of this book before I registered the names and realized exactly where Jen got her email address. Obscure literary reference solved!
This is an extremely good book that you should all read.
Reviewers apparently called this book things like "a Nazi idyll." That's interesting yet shallow, considering what happens in the book. The whole tone is antithetical to that. It's more about despair, and individual people acting the best they can within a society and government that has thoroughly failed them. So ok, the Dollfuss government was about preserving the rights of the aristocracy at the expense of the majority common poor people. People were getting imprisoned right and left for any political or social action against the ruling party; a lot of this was Nazi party-oriented action, since the Nazis seemed to be the only alternative. It makes a relatively convincing argument for why any Austrians responded to the Nazi party. However, in retrospect this is hard to view with an objective eye. Of course the Nazis were evil! says everyone. Yes, they were. In that case, it's especially interesting to see why people might think they were good, were great, were their best recourse in time of trouble.
The characters within the book weren't exactly secondary, but there was all kinds of politicosocial action going on in parallel with them. The whole main conflict between Pendennis and Dr. Prochaska rotated on party loyalty as well as character. I wouldn't say that either one is dominant, though; it's more like they were different interpretations of the same thing. Dr. Prochaska was totally centered around doing what was best for his country, which to him seemed Naziism, and Pendennis was totally centered on creating herself after escaping from her family i.e. her father. The conflict between one under orders from a party, totally believing in that party, and one under orders from herself, but with no one really giving those orders meaningfully, was very, very interesting.
The other big thing I noticed was that Dr. Prochaska always goes by his last name. Pendennis always goes by her first name. We don't know Prochaska's first name; we can't necessarily believe Pendennis is being serious when she tells her last name. What reading could we get from this? Who is personal, able to relate based on actual independent character, and who is not? It's a pretty simple reading, though, and not really accurate. I have to go in further.
This is an extremely good book that you should all read.
Reviewers apparently called this book things like "a Nazi idyll." That's interesting yet shallow, considering what happens in the book. The whole tone is antithetical to that. It's more about despair, and individual people acting the best they can within a society and government that has thoroughly failed them. So ok, the Dollfuss government was about preserving the rights of the aristocracy at the expense of the majority common poor people. People were getting imprisoned right and left for any political or social action against the ruling party; a lot of this was Nazi party-oriented action, since the Nazis seemed to be the only alternative. It makes a relatively convincing argument for why any Austrians responded to the Nazi party. However, in retrospect this is hard to view with an objective eye. Of course the Nazis were evil! says everyone. Yes, they were. In that case, it's especially interesting to see why people might think they were good, were great, were their best recourse in time of trouble.
The characters within the book weren't exactly secondary, but there was all kinds of politicosocial action going on in parallel with them. The whole main conflict between Pendennis and Dr. Prochaska rotated on party loyalty as well as character. I wouldn't say that either one is dominant, though; it's more like they were different interpretations of the same thing. Dr. Prochaska was totally centered around doing what was best for his country, which to him seemed Naziism, and Pendennis was totally centered on creating herself after escaping from her family i.e. her father. The conflict between one under orders from a party, totally believing in that party, and one under orders from herself, but with no one really giving those orders meaningfully, was very, very interesting.
The other big thing I noticed was that Dr. Prochaska always goes by his last name. Pendennis always goes by her first name. We don't know Prochaska's first name; we can't necessarily believe Pendennis is being serious when she tells her last name. What reading could we get from this? Who is personal, able to relate based on actual independent character, and who is not? It's a pretty simple reading, though, and not really accurate. I have to go in further.
July 31, 2024
I don’t know how to put to words how I feel about this book other than I am a changed woman.
December 26, 2012
Written prior to the Second World War, Boyle was criticized because the point of view of the novel is that of an Austrian medical doctor, cultured and wordly, but a fierce supporter of National Socialism. Boyle, was left of centre, but you understand her challenge as a writer to investigate the motivation of someone with a different ideology.
September 11, 2019
There are some beautiful turns of phrase in this strange novel, but mostly I found it's long descriptive passages tiresome, especially the comma-less series of adjectives which cropped up in every lengthy paragraph. As regards the controversy of its political affiliation, it's a fascinating snap shot of a very particular time in history, and the title itself gives sufficient comment on the author's leanings. She seems to have found the willful blindness of the protagonist just as frustrating as we would today, using the American girl and her independent ways as an appropriate foil for the strict, narrow, misogynistic ways of her love interest. It's appropriate that their two trains passed going opposite directions in the end.
March 15, 2016
First read in 1999. Reread in 2013.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews