BOOK REVIEW : Sequel That, Sadly, Goes Nowhere : LEAVING COLD SASSY, <i> By Olive Ann Burns (with a reminiscence by Katrina Kenison),</i> Ticknor & Fields, $21.95; 290 pages

Olive Ann Burns’ first novel, “Cold Sassy Tree,” was published in 1984. Burns was 60 and had written her novel under the constant, bullying threat of lymphoma.

“Cold Sassy Tree,” a sweet, funny, “Southern” book, inspired unreasonable affection from all sorts of fans. People just loved it. The book sold and sold and would not stop selling. The plot concerned a feisty granddad who, when his wife died, mourned for three weeks and then married a perky milliner about three decades his junior. The action was seen through the eyes of Will Tweedy, his 14-year-old grandson.

But the plot was not the thing with “Cold Sassy Tree.” It was the evocation of a world--lost, gone but still with us in so many ways--that turned its readers to melted butter. If we could only go back to those days when, in little towns, everyone knew everybody else, and everyone was somebody. (And to a time when adventure seemed to be somehow within everyone’s grasp.) The reason adventure was possible was of course because everyone was interesting--life itself was interesting--unsoiled, unspoiled.

Olive Burns, in this publication process, became a cash cow. She had created a wow of a book, and the book--her readers and her publishers decided--demanded a sequel. What we have in this volume is 141 pages of text (they call it 15 chapters, but that 15th chapter is pretty iffy), 17 pages of notes and fragments, and a 159-page reminiscence by Katrina Kenison, who became both editor and friend to Burns.

If, indeed, there are fans-readers who absolutely must find out what happened to Will Tweedy (that 14-year-old grandson), the news isn’t very good. He marries a fretful girl named Sanna, has four children in quick succession, and--according to the notes--will end up philandering both with his old girlfriend Trulu and with someone new called Norma. He will lose his farm. Sanna will stay with him because an imperfect marriage is better than a divorce.

But this volume should have a readership beyond besotted fans who “need a sequel.” This book is about subtext, about how writing functions in a writer’s life, about how women writers see themselves, how all writers see themselves and about how success can be as disconcerting as failure.

The text of what would have been Olive Burns’ second novel starts out with a lovely first chapter--Will Tweedy visits a social, where cars park carefully away from everything so as not to stir up dust or scare the horses. He meets Sanna, the new schoolteacher who will soon be his wife. Almost immediately the narrative falters. Nothing much happens. Old characters from the last book are brought in, dusted off and brought up to date. Characters write letters to each other that serve as position papers on who they are and what they feel.

The narrative evolves into a series of anecdotes (the kind my own Texan dad used to tell me), wonderful but not by any means advancing the plot. Olive Burns wasn’t going anywhere with this.

Katrina Kenison’s affectionate reminiscence inadvertently explains why. Burns was dying of cancer and congestive heart failure; her husband was dying of cancer as well. But other information seems just as disturbing here.

In her letters to her editor, Burns, who died in July, 1990, keeps insisting that she is “a fulfilled person.” She talks of “wifery” and all the dishes to be done. She apologizes again and again for not getting a grip on this second book and then hair-raisingly describes her infinite symptoms. She is unfailingly cheery.

The effect is desperately sad--especially if you’re a writer. If Dr. Freud were still around, he might actually for this one time be justified in asking: What did Olive Burns want? Success seems to have made her nervous. Expectations seem to have made her crazy. Illness seems to have been her sanctuary of last resort. And though she seems in her last years to have done little or no housework, the housewife-identity served as a fraying and increasingly inefficient mask.

Certainly “the writer’s life” didn’t kill her--she was dying anyway. Certainly the publication of “Cold Sassy Tree” gave her unparalleled moments of joy. But the evocation of a bedridden author struggling to write a second book approaches tragedy. It evokes pity and terror in the reader and, finally, grief.