Kay Boyle Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Vance Bourjaily

Critical Essay by Vance Bourjaily

Kay Boyle remains a central character in that group legend that nourished us all, the literary Paris of the 20's…. [They] invented techniques we still practice, and introduced themes that still concern us.

Kay Boyle's "Fifty Stories" is a wonderful exhibit of these techniques and themes in evolution. Among the techniques we have grammatical simplification, rhythmic repetition, the mixing in of vernacular, stream of consciousness, density of impressions, radical imagery and experiments with surrealism that may have originated with Gertrude Stein and James Joyce but became community property of the group.

These 50 stories are set as the author's life was set, and their themes and concerns follow her moving and maturing: There is the Midwest, Atlantic City, France, Austria, England, France again, occupied Germany and postwar New York. Changing as current history changed, the stories deal with childhood and parentage, sexuality, crass exploitation, prejudice, Fascism, war, American values and...
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