FIFTY STORIES

by Kay Boyle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1980

From her eight previous collections of stories published between 1929 and 1966, Boyle has chosen 50 stories and arranged them in groups devoted to ""Early"" work (1927-1934) and then to work sharing subject matter and locale: ""Austrian Group"" (1933-1938), ""English group"" (1935-1936), ""French Group"" (1939-1966), ""Military Occupation Group"" (1945-1950), and ""American Group"" (1942-1966). And, though many of these stories--especially the later ones--will seem rather sentimental and message-y in retrospect, there's an undeniable power and grab in the first-person testimony of the War period, from pre-war rumblings to the Fall of France (""Defeat"") to the bombed-out aftermaths. David Daiches supplies an off. puttingly effusive introduction (""Compassionate without being sentimnetal, moral without being didactic, contemporary without being ephemeral, engagÉs without being simply autobiographical or hortatory""). But even if Boyle is hardly the consummate, timeless artist Daiches celebrates, her fiction retains much of its old-fashioned craft and grace--and this is a generous and thoroughly representative compilation.

Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1980

ISBN: 0811212068

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION