FICTION

GENTLEMEN, I ADDRESS YOU PRIVATELY by Kay Boyle (Capra Press: $18.95; 227 pp.). Kay Boyle wrote her second novel in 1933. Unlike many writers who would rather bury their early works, she has just spent two years revising it. The result is a blend of youthful passion and mature objectivity. Her characterizations are colorful and vigorous. She describes the rugged beauty of Normandy so that you can almost smell the soil and feel the cold, salty air. The hero, a young and virginal defrocked priest, links up with an immoral Cockney sailor who holds strong sexual appeal for both men and women. The sailor is so wily and dishonest, yet so full of a pagan delight in life, that the ex-priest considers him a supreme example of spiritual purity, and he falls in love with him. Boyle is a master storyteller and the sad tales of her minor characters are also compelling: the frustrated editor, the fun-loving lesbian, the bitter young dirt farmer and his pretty wife.