Three Short Novels

Now reissued in The Revised Modern Classics series, Kay Boyle's Three Short Novels can once again startle the unwary reader with their brilliant combination of keen observation, skillfully crafted prose, and moral awareness. In "The Crazy Horse," the killing of a blind gelding is pivotal in a power struggle between a businesslike mother, a feckless father, and an almost grown daughter. In "The Bridegroom's Body," swans become surrogates for human emotion in a story of suppressed passion and the unquestioned male subjugation of women. "Decision," the only overtly political story in the collection, deals with the liberating power of moral choice—even if the choice means almost certain death—in Franco's Spain. As Robert Smith wrote about Kay Boyle in the Cleveland Plain Dealer : "Few American writers have written so beautifully of the human condition with a mind that recognizes the limitations of conduct and with a heart that sees the need to test those limits always by love and courage."