THE GOLDEN HAND (501 pp.]Edith SimonPutnam ($4).
It takes something more than the drugstore magic of the ordinary historical novel to wake the dead. Once in a long while a writer finds the prescription, and brings the past to life in a fine historical novel. This week one of the best in many a month is being published in the U.S.
The Golden Hand is the fifth novel by Edith Simon, the wife of a research chemist at the University of Edinburgh. It tells the story of 53 years (1347-1400) in the life of an imaginary English village called Bedesfordits births, feasts, miracles,...