[Mr. Derleth has written "The House on the Mound" as a sequel to "Bright Journey"] and if it lacks much of the dramatic impact of "Bright Journey," it still is worth the long wait. Indeed, one understands why Mr. Derleth waited so long to write it, for it posed an exceedingly difficult problem: How to give middle-aged, generally eventless love and living the substance of drama.

He has solved the problem, in a measure at least, by telling it "plain." The simple truth is that not much does happen in this novel, and yet it is given stature by the goodness of the people involved. Dousman and his charming wife are persons you can love and respect….

Mr. Derleth writes with deep love of his home state, from its admission to the Union in 1848 to Dousman's death twenty years later. His is a regional novel of a high...