COUNTRY PEOPLE. By Ruth Suckow. (Cape. 7s. 6d- - net).—We
follow through this novel the lives of a German- American family of farmers.. The chief characters, August and Emma Kaetterhenry, are good, solid, respectable people, who keep themselves very hard at work and gradually amass , a competency. Nothing much happens ; they feel as though a new life had opened out when Emma has to go to consult a doctor in a big city. Their children grow up round them, some painstaking and serious in the old fashion, some a little infected with modernism. Chiefly it is the War that causes a change in .their lives. Their neighbours are never quite as friendly as before, although two of the sons go out to France. When old August retires from work and builds a house for himself in the town, they both lose many of their ' interests, and feel a little uprooted. The story is told very • quietly, with a wealth of good observation and pictorial detail. It is a mild book, half interesting throughout. Doubt- less it is excellent as a realistic study of ordinary life.
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