Tina McElroy Ansa (1949–2024)

The Hand I Fan with is a book I've read so many times I can recite passages from it.

Lena McPherson is a lady of prestige in her town of Mulberry, GA. Many readers who follow Ansa's work will remember Lena had a prequel in Baby Of The Family. This book though gives us full insight to her initial sadness - Lena was born of a spiritual birth with a caul over her face. Her people didn't believe in that, and burned the caul. Over her life Lena has had remarkable spiritual gifts, but such gifts show more have limited her from having meaningful relationships with people except for Sister, her best friend. Sister is prety much a high priestess and has been trying to help Lena get a handle on her gifts.

The book picks up steam with Sister goes on a spiritual trip for a couple of months. Before they go they do a ritual trying to conjure Lena up a man. Little do either of them know they summon Herman, Lena's 100 year old ghost of a guardian angel. Herman ain't your typical guardian angel. He's there to love Lena in any way shape or form she needs it, and he gets the job done. Slowly but surely her gifts start manifesting him as flesh and bone, especially as their love thing intensifies. This at least gives her clarity and closure on the deaths of her entire immediate family, and a deeper understanding of the state of affairs in her life, especially pertaining to Herman. But all good things come to an end. In the case of Herman and Lena, the end is just the beginning.

Read it. Starts out "slow" if you haven't read Baby Of The Family, but if you're reading a one off of it and make it to the chapter entitled "Love" the pages will turn and it will be over before you know it. show less

Reviewed by Kristen (Class of 2012)
Ugly Ways chronicles the experience of three sisters in the wake of their mother's death. Mudear, as they have referred to her since childhood, has always been a figure which inspired her daughters with mixed emotions - fear, longing, gratitude, inadequacy, hatred. Now her spirit lingers on, ripe with criticism of her daughters and their "ugly ways" as they scramble to put together her funeral. It's a story about the bruise left by family, about show more stereotypes, and about the haunting within our own souls. Anyone who has ever had relatives can relate to this vivid and honest novel. show less

The baby was born with a caul over her head, which means she can see ghosts. A wonderful story about family.

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I chose wisely. Rereading my books from 1988 wasn't some sort of plan, my choices are always usually more random: putting a book on a shelf and spotting another, going over a bookcase to purge a few...that sort of thing. But there, my first tow squares are devoted to rereads and I am not sorry. There are a few new-to-me planned. I've spent some more time looking over my card, my show more list, and my TBR stack, matching up a few. My stack is rather more heavy on the mysteries: fourteen of my squares don't have a book waiting for them so far.

But I was saying, this book was an excellent choice. There hasn't been a lot of Southern on my stack for a while, except Whiskey in a Teacup, which we'll just move quickly by. So, it was good to wallow in the heat for a bit, to sit down to Southern food (only fictionally, I'm not otherwise a fan), to enjoy the familiar from a different angle. Lena's world somewhat resembles mine, but from the other side of segregation.

Things I envy most: her big old house, and the adults swearing. While I would have loved to have grown up with my maternal grandmother in the house, my paternal grandmother would not have been possible: she scared the hell out of everyone. Aunt Shirley was the only local daughter-in-law, she saw MawMaw all the time, and never had the nerve to smoke in front of her, not in forty-some years of marriage. The other three children fled as far away as they could.

Also, the plotlessness was a break from my usually story-driven choices. There's an arc,

but it's more a way to connect all the different vignettes. You'd call it picaresque if Lena were more rebellious, as it is, hmmm. Really, I'm not sure at all. But it was fun to see "Co-Cola".

Personal inscribed, signed and dated copy for which I thank the author. She was delightful and charming for the short time I spent with her. show less

Fans of Tina McElroy Ansa have waited many years for the next installment in the story of Mulberry's Lovejoy sisters following the death of their overbearing, but memorable, mother.

You may wonder what would propel continued interest in the lives of these characters? After all, Mudear (the mother, Esther Lovejoy) died in the first novel (“Ugly Ways,”initially published in 1993). To answer that question, you would need to have discussed and identified with one (or more) of the Lovejoy show more daughters, or recognized and empathized with the survival techniques each young girl used to overcome their childhood traumas. A heated discussion of these topics drove book club discussions ‘back in the day’ and authors like Ansa propelled the heyday of African American publishing and general acceptance of other authors works whose characters reflected the African American experience.

In my literary circles, interest in these characters has never waned, though publishers seem to believe otherwise. So, we have been forced to wait far too long to see whether the family survived. It was well worth the wait.

Ansa seems to know these characters so well the story picks up right where the last one left off. She continues to reveal her talent for writing in the voice of each character, devoting each of them separate chapters and she delves into their personalities in depth in each one. There is a reason Mudear returns to influence their lives, and reading this new book will make you understand her need to be involved and the family’s need to ultimately separate themselves from her influence. Supernatural and superstitions play a large part in the story, so keep an open mind to the fantastical events and motivations that drive the story.

I bought my copy (only available as a first edition paperback) directly from the author to support her effort to self-publish (via DownSouth Press). The writing was wonderful, but there seemed to be some problem with the typeset which had large gaps between some letters and words that interrupted the flow when reading it. This seemed to occur only early in the book, so about midway through the book, the story easily becomes your primary focus.

I still love the Lovejoys and will continue to speculate on their lives. Don’t miss the opportunity to read the next installment. There are no gaps in the story and you will smile as you turn the final page of this latest installment. show less