Kay Boyle (Magill Book Reviews)

American author Kay Boyle lived for some twenty years in Europe, was on the cutting edge of poetry in the 1920’s, and in the 1930’s was hailed as “Hemingway’s successor” by critic Mary Colum. In later years, Boyle was known for her outspoken political activism. Joan Mellen’s book is the first complete biography published since Boyle’s death in 1992. Mellen focuses on Boyle’s life and relationships, referring to her work only as it reflects and illuminates her life—a life she shared with three husbands, six children, and numerous lovers.

Mellen shatters the image that Boyle carefully cultivated: the fascinating woman, successful author, devoted wife and mother. Instead, she is exposed as stubborn, self-centered, attractive to men, yet cold and indifferent to her children, whom she abandoned emotionally and often physically. Mellen notes the irony of a writer who records the deepest emotions of men and women in her work but does not see the lasting pain she brings to her family.

Mellen’s work is excellent when she is dealing with facts. The research and scholarship of this biography are impressive. Unfortunately, she sometimes treats Boyle’s fiction as if it were also fact and draws her inferences accordingly. She fails to offer adequate support for her theories on Boyle’s professional and personal antipathy toward other women, her lack of concern for her children, and her unconscious need to fabulate.

At the same time Mellen attempts a balance, for she clearly admires her subject. She credits Boyle with the creation of the so-called “New Yorker story” form and praises her courage in what was surely a difficult life.

Sources for Further Study

Booklist. XC, April 15, 1994, p. 1500.

Kirkus Reviews. LXII, February 1, 1994, p. 122.

Library Journal. CXIX, April 15, 1994, p. 76.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. August 7, 1994, p. 4.

The New York Times Book Review. XCIX, May 1, 1994, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly. CCXLI, February 7, 1994, p. 77.

The Washington Post Book World. XXIV, July 17, 1994, p. 13.

The Women’s Review of Books. XI, July, 1994, p. 33.