Wedding Day and other stories by Kay Boyle (1930)

This collection was first published in Paris in 1929, entitled simply Short Stories, in a limited edition - this is the subsequent trade publication. It was Boyle's first book, and shows her as an American under the influence of modernism in Paris in the twenties. Her strength is in spirit. It is a fighting one. These stories boil (what a superb surname for this writer) and rumble with suppressed anger and biting passions. She has a penchant also for interest in unusual circumstances; the situations here are intriguing and tasty. Some of the stories read reasonably straightforwardly and are marked in their originality and success. Her weakness shows in the others. It is in the ungrammatic and self-indulgent abrupt stops and massive disconnects - the excesses of modernism. One can almost see her, too young and flaming-eyed, at Parisian cafe tables, exclaiming in that all-too-familiar way of the indulged 'rebel'. What it does in terms of meaning is deflate; after the initial "Wow!" of many of these phrases comes the wrinkled forehead of wondering what she actually meant - the "Wow!" is revealed as a superficiality. I'm really looking forward to reading into her long career, especially watching that phenomenal fire and energy become disciplined out of these extravagances.