Books: Customs & Cliches

PEONY (312 pp.)—Pearl Buck—John Day ($3).

Anyone who is curious about how bestsellers are put together might profit from a hard look at Peony. Here, in a neat economy package, are crammed all the formula-tested and cliche-ripe ingredients for which book-club members seem to have an insatiable appetite. (Peony, a Literary Guild selection, is Miss Buck's tenth book to hit the jackpot with a major book club.)

Miss Buck relies for throb-appeal on a blend of the Abie's Irish Rose and Cinderella themes. Peony is written in a soggy prose and stilted pidgin that suggest a kind of mimicry of Miss Buck's previous...