Lynch is a freelance writer in northern New Mexico. In the following essay, she discusses ways in which Boyle's story marks a break from traditional narrative in its content, style, and form.

As part of the modernist movement of the 1930s, the work of Kay Boyle marks a break from traditional narrative writing on various counts. In "Astronomer's Wife," Boyle departs from traditional romance by depicting a woman's defection from her remote, intellectual husband when she comes in contact with an earthy, responsive plumber who comes to fix the overflowing toilet. The astronomer's wife, by definition an appendage of her husband, breaks with all traditional expectations of conformity and fidelity by responding to a man other than her husband, who is beneath her status socially; while the story is certainly romantic, it is a revision of traditional romance. Central to the story is the division of men...