The Hand I Fan With

Rating:
Summary: A must read!!
Review: I am a huge fan of Mrs. McElroy Ansa's works. She is very desprictive and mixes real-life and the paranormal excellently.
Read Baby of the Family before you read this.

Rating:
Summary: A Sensually Stimulating Read
Review: The Hand I Fan With belongs in your library so it can be read repeatedly. The story weaved by Ansa is a dream-like love affair between Lena and her lover - the type of love every woman wishes she could experience. Ansa keeps you enraptured from the beginning of the novel through the end with surprising twists and turns. Curl up with a warm and cozy blanket, a cup of cocoa and experience the love. Note, this is not your traditional love story.

Rating:
Summary: Good Job
Review: A whopping good read. You have to admit that this ghostly (not ghastly) affair was a great plot idea. Very original. Ironically, the book's strength is also its weakness. Ms Ansa has a gift for local color and scenic description, with a tendency to go a little bit overboard, which makes for slow, but interesting reading. I bought the book in the spring and could not get past page 10. I started and stopped, started and stopped. But the lush writing was so skillful that I vowed to finish it. Then when summer came and I had a little vacation time, I zipped right through it. Lena is an intriguing character. I must go back and read Baby of the Family now to get the rest of her story.

Rating:
Summary: How Lena got her groove back
Review: "The Hand I Fan With" is an outstanding example of why publishing houses hire editors. It�s a good 450-page book, but it could have been an extraordinary 300-page book.

For those unfamiliar with the book, it�s an odd blend of romance and science fiction. Lena McPherson is successful in business but lonely, until Herman -- a smart, kind, handsome, sexy man -- enters her life. Herman and Lena�s story (interspersed with flashbacks) unfolds one summer in Lena�s hometown of Mulberry, Georgia.

This could have been a lovely book -- in fact, it *is* a lovely book. Herman is darling, though a little too good to be true. The story of the budding relationship is touching and lyrically written, and Ms. Ansa�s descriptions of love, sex, landscapes -- even food -- are lush, sensual, and immediate.

But like the little girl in the nursery rhyme, when Ms. Ansa is bad, she�s horrid. Stream of consciousness didn�t even work for Faulkner. At one point, a character won�t follow a recipe because, "She disdained them. She would look at a recipe as though it were written in Venusian, and she didn�t read the language. What she meant was that she refused to follow a recipe".

This is exactly the sort of passage that editors are paid to keep off the finished page. It�s not only awkward and overwritten, it�s almost nonsensical -- are there people who *can* read Venusian? The last sentence is also redundant -- saying "she disdained them" was sufficient for most of us to have figured out her opinion.

In a flashback, one of Lena�s Catholic school classmates slaps a nun for looking at her while saying, "Everybody�s mother can�t be counted on to dress them like virgins in Mary-like dresses". Aside from the awkward, stilted dialogue ("Mary-like dresses"? Does anybody actually talk that way?), I don�t even understand the insult: That she isn�t a virgin? That she doesn�t dress like a virgin (whatever that means)? That her mother doesn�t know enough to help her pretend to be a virgin? Granted, the book is partly fantasy, but it should be *believable*. The insult, to the extent that it�s even comprehensible, is slight -- certainly not enough for an eighth-grade girl to strike a teacher and risk expulsion right before graduation.

Another drawback is the author�s depiction of Lena. Since she�s the main character, that�s difficult to overlook. I�m borrowing from Dorothy Parker here, but it�s my observation that when an author informs the reader, in blazing neon letters, that a character is too wonderful for words, the effect on the reader is usually counterproductive.

We�re repeatedly bludgeoned with exaggeratedly flattering descriptions of Lena�s fabulousness in every particular. Lena is gorgeous. Lena has an incredible body. Lena looks years younger than her age. Lena is loved by everyone (except her romantic rival, who�s jealous anyway) -- when an anonymous truck driver blows his horn at her for almost hitting him head-on, *he�s* the villain. Lena is so brilliant that her college professors fantasized the Nobel Prize for her -- not for *themselves*, mind you -- for *her*. Lena has astounding success with every business venture she tries. Lena cares nothing about money, yet is still rolling in dough.

Sometimes, this praise is sappy, fawning, and/or dull (since I don�t care how much younger than her age Lena looks). Other times, it�s so inappropriate as to be jarring, e.g., when Lena is in the shower and hears someone breaking into her house, but "no matter how she wrapped the towel around herself, she still managed to look cute".

It also suggests that you can get a good man -- provided you�re rich, beautiful, and look at least ten years younger than your age. How about a book where the heroine is loved and has a happy, fulfilled life, even though she�s only averagely attractive instead of a supermodel?

Then there are overwrought -- and far too frequent -- descriptions of Lena�s clothes. She overdresses ludicrously for every occasion, e.g., white silk slacks over a black teddy for a picnic in a barn. Silk slacks for a cocktail party or elegant restaurant, fine -- but a picnic? Who wears white anything in a barn? Didn�t the bottom half of the black teddy show through the white slacks? Doesn�t the woman own a pair of jeans? Another flashback describes Lena�s college shoe wardrobe, which wouldn�t have fit in any dormitory *room* I�ve ever seen, let alone any dormitory *closet*.

These overly elaborate desciptions of Lena�s overly elaborate clothes eventually result in the book�s low point. Lena is ready to board the train to college, wearing a wool suit, stockings, and high heels; and her mother makes a comment so silly that it made me laugh out loud. She says that Lena�s outfit is "perfect for traveling".

A wool suit, nylons, and high heels are perfect for a thousand mile ride� across the Deep South� on a non-air-conditioned train� in AUGUST? I�d bet money that neither the temperature nor the humidity went below 95 throughout the entire trip -- anybody crazy enough to wear that outfit would have roasted alive -- never mind the fact that you might as well show up on a college campus in a Victorian gown and parasol as a suit and high heels. The only thing that outfit is perfect for is somebody�s retro fantasy of travel -- it�s about as well suited to actual travel as a hoopskirt.

A certain amount of desciption enhances a book -- the glimpses of family and small-town life are heartwarming, and the romance is lovely -- but this goes beyond the point of diminishing returns. Ms. Ansa takes a sweet, imaginative story and smothers it in Martha Stewart-esque details. A bad book is simply bad. A good book that got semi-ruined by annoying plunges into soap-opera is far more disappointing. It�s still a good book, but I wish I�d read the book it *could* have been.