PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD by Dennis...

PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD by Dennis Vannatta (White Pine Press: $14; 194 pp., paperback original). Dennis Vannatta’s stories follow the Workman family from 1900 through the present day. The son of one of Custer’s soldiers, John Workman takes his family from their comfortable Pennsylvania home to seek greater opportunities in the West. But the vast emptiness of the prairie daunts him, and he settles in the tiny hamlet of Sunday’s Hollow in Missouri. Workman’s descendants lead bleak lives, struggling to scratch a living from the scanty soil of the Ozarks. Vannatta’s spare prose suggests a developing talent, rather than a mature one.