Books: Hillbilly Peyton Place

CERTAIN WOMEN (249 pp.)—Erskine Caldwell—Little, Brown ($3.75).

This book represents Erskine (Tobacco Road) Caldwell's annual defense of a title that is indisputably his—America's No. 1 cracker-barrel pornographer. Caldwell has rarely overindulged in four-letter words; he is simply a master of what might be called dirty-situation comedy. Since about 40 million hard-a nd soft-cover copies of his 34 books have been snapped up by U.S. and foreign readers (God's Little Acre tops the list with more than 8,000,000 copies sold), the reader can only conclude that to leer is human.

Set in a hillbilly Peyton...