Taylor Caldwell's long, turbulent narratives—one appears every year with the regularity of the almanac or year-book—are very much alike. From "Dynasty of Death" (1938) down to [her new novel "This Side of Innocence"] the ingredients vary only slightly; a family or two of wealth and power, most of their members despising one another and engaging in callous and unscrupulous business enterprise; intra-family love duels; intimate details of high finance and industrial backgrounds; meticulous attention to Godey's Lady's Book and other sources of information for details of costumes and interior decoration in the Gilded Age. The prolific Buffalo novelist puzzles the discriminating reader of fiction: the books are too long and cry out for the blue pencil, particularly the obvious comments on situations that speak for themselves; the dialogue is often stilted and prolix, but perhaps no more unrealistic than Hemingway's, which is stilted and too bare; and...