Process: A Novel

Three quarters of a century after the manuscript of Kay Boyle’s first novel disappeared, a carbon copy of it was discovered by Sandra Spanier, the preeminent Boyle authority. Set off by Spanier’s substantial introduction, Process is published here for the first time in paperback.

A classic bildungsroman, Process tells the story of Kerith Day, who is in search of her own identity and place in the world. A keenly critical observer of the dreary industrial landscape and the beaten-down inhabitants of her native Cincinnati, Ohio, Kerith is determined to discover something better. She places her faith in art and politics and sets off for France, where workers and radicals are on the same side.

Kay Boyle (1902-92) was among the “Lost Generation” of ex-patriate writers and artists who gathered in Paris in the 1920s. She published more than forty books and won numerous literary awards. Sandra Spanier, a professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, is the author of Kay Boyle: Artist and Activist and the editor of Life Being the Best and Other Stories by Kay Boyle.