Boyle, 50 Stories. An eloquent testament to the possibilities of living and writing.

From Publishers Weekly Boyle's memorable novel, first published in 1936 and long out of print, and set in the Austrian town of Feldbruck from February to July of 1934, is at once a love story and a chilling political drama. Romance blooms between Prochaska, the resident doctor at the town hospital's ward for infectious diseases, and Pendennis, a young, married American tourist. The attraction between the two is immediate and potent, but as their involvement deepens, Pendennis becomes aware of Prochaska's work for the Nazi party, which many Feldbruck citizens cling to in the hope that it will rescue Austria from economic depression. The lovers' clash is as emphatic as their affinity; as spring wears on, Pendennis's antipathy grows, until she declares to Prochaska that "you take your orders, you swallow it all down along with your pride and your sense or whathaveyou One day they're going to put a pretty little uniform on you . . . and say, 'Now you run along to war, dear, ' and won't that be a lot of fun?" The collapse of the affair seems as inevitable as the tragic, impending war. The novel is reprinted here with an introduction in which Burton Hatlen of the University of Maine elucidates why Boyle's sympathetic view of Prochaska does not signify support of fascism, and with a brief, illuminating afterword by Boyle.

Kay Boyle's second novel, Year Before Last, was published in 1932 by Harrison Smith in New York and by Faber and Faber in London, in each case a true edition from different settings of type. Matthew J. Bruccoli, the textual editor of the Cross­currents/Modern Fiction series, has used the Harrison Smith edition in preparing this volume which is unique in the annals of textual editing of a modern novel because the emendations in the copy-text have been approved by the author. Harry T. Moore has provided a Preface which considers this work in relation to Miss Boyle's development as a novelist. Mr. Bruccoli's Note on the Text provides information about both the 1932 editions and lists the emendations. Against the background of the French Riviera we watch the unfolding of the story of a young woman who has left her husband for another man, a poet of compelling personality. Their love affair is complicated by the insane jealousy of an older woman which leads them to acts of desperation. This novel of love and hate moves forward in swift incident and action to a dramatic end.

Traces the life and tumultuous career of the author from her childhood to her years in Paris, her rise in the literary world, her struggle against McCarthyism, and her final years

Thirteen stories deal with three sisters, a young woman's dashed hopes, failed love, life's dissatisfactions, missed opportunities, and the search for identity.

Three quarters of a century after the manuscript of Kay Boyle's first novel disappeared, a carbon copy of it was discovered by Sandra Spanier, the preeminent Boyle authority. Set off by Spanier's substantial introduction, Process is published here for the first time in paperback. A classic bildungsroman, Process tells the story of Kerith Day, who is in search of her own identity and place in the world. A keenly critical observer of the dreary industrial landscape and the beaten-down inhabitants of her native Cincinnati, Ohio, Kerith is determined to discover something better. She places her faith in art and politics and sets off for France, where workers and radicals are on the same side.