SOURCE: "PW Interviews: Kay Boyle," in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 218, No. 16, October 17, 1980, pp. 8-9.

In the following essay based on an interview with Boyle, Holt provides an overview of Boyle's life, concentrating on the author's political activism.

Climbing the steps of Kay Boyle's four story Victorian home in San Francisco PW is greeted by an enormous poster for Amnesty International that has obviously been hanging on the front door for years. It seems a fitting symbol of the long and productive career of this civil rights activist whose personal stand against fascism, McCarthyism and Vietnam exacted a high price: a ruined marriage in the '40s, a blacklisted career in the '50s, a jail term for sit-ins in the '60s, near loss of a job during the San Francisco State College riots and, most recently (and voluntarily), cancellation of her next publishing contract, due to Doubleday's action...