The Homestead

Even an effective O. Henry-esque ending doesn't redeem this pallid historical novel, in which Olivia Sands Burton, now in a Topeka nursing home in 1921, tells her life story. The tale is one of virtually unrelenting misfortune. Olivia set out for Kansas with her family as a young woman, but en route her mother died of consumption and her father was killed in an accident. Later, her husband Francis left her to offer his services as a physician to the Confederate Army during the Civil War, just before she lost her infant in childbirth. Francis never returned, but it was 11 years before Olivia received confirmation that he had died in the war. A torrid affair with a hired hand offered some relief, but led to another pregnancy and a miscarriage. Olivia's brother, Aaron, was scalped in an Indian attack but survived, and she nursed him for the rest of his life, raised his illegitimate daughter, and then lost the girl to her estranged mother. Olivia's response to this unending tragedy is taciturn perseverance. While that may make her admirable, Hermann ( Of Simple Dreams ) fails to make her interesting. (May)