THE LAND AND THE WELL (243 pp.)Hilda Wernher, with Huthi SinghJohn Day ($2.75).
Ever since Pearl Buck's novel The Good Earth made peasant life in China familiar to thousands of Americans, Publishers John Day (whose president, Richard J. Walsh, is Novelist Buck's husband) have been praying for a novel that would do as much for the peasants of India. They believe that The Land and the Well is the answer to their prayer.
Like The Good Earth, The Land and the Well is virtually an encyclopedia of Hindu manners and practices, revealed through the lives of a poor Hindu family in a dry...