Fiction

RECENT & READABLE

AGE OF THUNDER -- Frederic Prokosch -- Harper ($2.50). Once again the author of The Conspirators silkily mixes mysticism and melodrama in an allegorical account of an underground agent's mission. In search of the spiritual dry rot besetting occupied France, the agent, Jean-Nicolas Martin, finds meaning for his own life in the love of a darkly beautiful Italian miss.

THE POWER HOUSE -- Alex Comfort --Viking ($3). One brooding young mill worker blows up a train and another strangles his overbearing, nymphomaniac mistress in this doggedly realistic novel of French lower-middle-class life before and during the Nazi occupation. Power ful, depressing.

AN ITALIAN TRAGEDY -- Nicola Cu-ringa -- Liveright ($2.50). The grim realities of a humble and emotional people engulf Peasant Giacomo as he returns from America to the poverty of his home in Italy during World War I. Clumsily told but rich in detail.

A MOMENT OF TIME -- Sydney R. Mc Lean--Putnam ($2.50). Glimpsed tell ingly at intervals of ten years as she grows from childhood in 1775 to old age, Submit Ellery's life reveals her quiet strength. An effective, restrained and ingenious first novel.

WINDS, BLOW GENTLY -- Ronald Kirkbridge-- Fell ($2.50). A family of Pennsylvania Quakers move to South Carolina, where Father Jordan's neighbors grin at his "book farming," scowl at the high wages he pays his Negroes. Gay, charming, occasionally sexy tale of farm life with social overtones.

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