The Hand I Fan With [Paperback]

Tina Mcelroy Ansa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1996

Bestselling author Tina McElroy Ansa is back with another tale from Mulberry, Georgia, the richly drawn fictional town and home of the extraordinary Lena McPherson.  Lena, now forty-five and tired of being "the hand everyone fans with," has grown weary of shouldering the town's problems and wants to find a little love and companionship for herself.  So she and a friend perform a supernatural ritual to conjure up a man for Lena.  She gets one all right: a ghost named Herman who, though dead for one hundred years, is full of life and all man.  His love changes Lena's life forever, satisfying as never before both her physical and spiritual needs.  Filled with the same "humor, grace, and great respect for power of the particular" (The New York Times Book Review) as her previous critically acclaimed novels, Baby of the Family and Ugly Ways, The Hand I Fan With  is yet another memorable and life-affirming tale from one of America's best-loved authors.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This novel is a sequel to Tina McElroy Ansa's Baby of the Family, in which readers were introduced to her heroine, Lena McPherson. Lena was born with a caul over her face, a fold of skin that, according to the elderly of Mulberry, Georgia, promises good fortune. Indeed, Lena is blessed--and cursed--with the ability to read minds, a gift that has fueled her commercial prosperity and her numerous community projects but has also, she feels, stifled her romantic life. It's hard to fall in love with a man whose meanest thoughts are plain to you, Lena finds. The author's solution to Lena's dilemma is a ghost: Herman, who has been dead for a century but who still has "plenty of life in him." This unlikely coupling--and couple they do, overcoming the usual obstacles to human-astral intercourse--leads to a kind of happiness for Lena as McElroy explores her fictional Southern world.

From Library Journal

A woman desperate for love and companionship performs a supernatural ritual with a friend to produce a man. What she gets instead is a ghost?and he changes her life forever.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 462 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385475993
• ISBN-13: 978-0385475990
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,025,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat Disappointing..., November 6, 2001

By 

Phyllis Rhodes (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hand I Fan With (Paperback)

I found this book to be really disappointing. I'd read so many positive reviews about Ansa and in fairness, I read Baby of the Family and Ugly Ways prior to this title and must conclude that I'm not into her writing style. She has a very descriptive, detailed writing style that consumes pages upon pages of text that describe the environment but is so very weak on plot and story line. I know this was the sequel to Baby of the Family, but I felt she retold the same story within this one. Like in Baby of the Family, I kept waiting for something to happen to/with Lena, the main character. Sure, she summons up a ghost and has lots of sex and love..but basically, that's it. I kept waiting for a dramatic climax, but there was none. The problem is, every time the story started to move forward and show a little conflict (a female ghost rival, an angry town that feels forgotten by Lena), the conflict is resolved far too easily. The book encourages us to stop concentrating on the material and enjoy life as Lena learned to do..but her transformation was dull and truly uneventful for me. It took a lot for me to finish this book..and I had to skim/speed read to make it through it. I'm still trying to figure out what all the hype was about.....I'd agree with another reviewer and put this one at the bottom of the three Ansa books. In my opinion, this book could have been written in half the text and had the same impact.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars overrated overheated trash, February 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Hand I Fan With (Paperback)

All the signs were pointing to an enjoyable book: a teasing synopsis sounded interesting, a unique milieu was promised, there was a lauded writer. What no one mentioned was the SLOW PACE of this book. Lena McPherson finds love with a ghostly stud named Herman--why doesn't anybody mention that FIRST we have to wade through tedious descriptions of Lena's designer wardrobe--her luxurious house (complete with a sauna with hand-made tiles; Lena just can't find a decent maid to scrub those very tiles, darn it all!)--her expensive car--her hairstyles--her earrings--the color of her nylons, her shoes, her fingernails--before we even meet this Herman? Do we really CARE about Lena's many materialistic trappings? The townsfolk of Mulberry, GA, are less communal and caring than nosy and infuriating. The sex scenes are abrupt and raunchy--I relish decent erotica, but somehow Lena and/or Tina McElroy Ansa seem to flaunt "dirty words" and lascivious deeds in between pretentious musings on the past, the future, "love," ghosts, whatever. This isn't a beginning/middle/end kind of narrative, it's a New Agey hash of African goddess worship/voodoo/Catholicism/"smell the roses"/sexcapades/hedonism. It's supposed to be an eerie coincidence that Lena and a dead relative use the same expression: "Oh, Lord!" Is "Oh, Lord" considered that idiosyncratic? What next, the IRONY that both Lena and Herman say, "Shoot!"??? I kept waiting and waiting for something to happen--near the end, finally, two things actually did: The citizens of Mulberry try to have Lena committed, and Herman decides to disappear as suddenly as he appeared. Neither scene was played for its dramatic moment--they were simply one more thing that happened to passive, perfect Lena McPherson. More than bored by this book, I was ANGERED--why do so many other readers love this book? Don't they recognize rubbish when they see it?

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Passionate, Erotic Love Story!, November 7, 2001

By 

Yasmin Coleman (PENNSYLVANIA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Hand I Fan With (Paperback)

The Hand I Fan With by Tina McElroy Ansa is a fascinating and entertaining novel. Lena McPherson, the protagonist of the story, is the hand that everyone in Mulberry, GA depends on physically, financially, emotionally and socially. Lena seems to have it all-the latest car, a thriving business, beautiful clothes, a fancy home, community status and so many people who depend on her call her "the hand I fan with". But Lena's life is strangely empty. Lena lacks the love, comfort, support and companionship of a man, and so Lena and a friend perform a magic ritual designed to "call her up a man". And a man Lena receives in the form of Herman(ie Her-Man) a ghost over 100 years old. Herman is the perfect man and helps Lena to understand/learn that she can give all she has to give and still have love left over for others. But do the townsfolk appreciate the new Lena or are they put off by the makeover and to what extent will they go to show Lena how they feel about the changes that she has made.

Due to mixed reviews, this book sat on my bookshelf for two years before I finally decided to read it. Aside from some parts of the story which were overwritten/too overly descriptive(i.e. Lena's house, Lena's clothes, Lena's shoes..et al) I really enjoyed this story. While Lena was the subject of the story, Ansa was really speaking to all women. In The Hand I Fan With, Ansa teaches us that as women it is important to explore the issue of how one lives as well as how one loves. She wants the reader to see beyond the clothes Lena wears or the car Lena drives, and see how women, can live a full life on this planet. How we live a spiritual life in the midst of plenty or in the midst of deprivation. How we reach the balance of duty to others and self-fulfillment. How attachment to things and fixing and doing saps us of the joy of living. How it is possible to be a mother without giving birth or without formal adoption. For this is a woman's story of giving too much to others without thought for self. It is the story of how many women live our lives in a rush of accumulating and sacrificing. It's a story of self-realization and the journey to change.

I must admit I'm sorry I listened to others as I missed out too long on an intriguing and delightful read. Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. It was a story that I wanted to read in one sitting, but the story was so erotic and delectable that I decided to read it slowly and savor it for as long as I could because this was one story I really didn't want to end. Sometimes you can't believe what you hear or read you just have to pick up a book for yourself and see if you like it. The Hand I Fan With was that book for me. I'm glad I finally indulged myself as this book was worth the read and is one of my Top 10 reads for 2001.