JOB'S HOUSE

Here, by the author of The Triumph of Willie Pond, is another novel based on the problems of relief. The old couple whose story this is are a lovable pair and their problems of no money, no resources and the home they love and have built through forty years, become the reader's problems, cutting deep below the surface emotions. The main story is, to my way of thinking, weakened by the sub-plot of Bessie, the one normal member of a sort of modern Jukes family -- a harrowing picture which pulls one away from the psychology of more normal relief, the ramifications of investigations and laws, the inevitable inadequacies of application to individual cases. The Manns and Bessie find a way out of the morass, a way which points a lesson in cooperative effort for all levels of society.