African-American favorite Ansa (The Hand I Fan With) focuses in her fourth novel on three generations of troubled women in a small Georgia town, employing the Dickensian device of ghostly guides to lead them to enlightenment. The Peach Blossom Festival is upon tiny Mulberry, but the Pines women have little reason for rejoicing. LaShawndra, an 18-year-old "coochie" who engages in indiscriminate sex and whose greatest aspiration is to dance in a music video, has disappeared. Her mother, Sandra, is too busy with her real estate career, her new romance with a pastor and youth-enhancing beauty treatments to look for LaShawndra. So it falls to the girl's grandmother, Lily, a respected pillar of the community, to perform the search. The book is a first-person triptych, the three Pines women taking turns from oldest to youngest in detailing how they arrived at this latest crisis point—and each has a different spirit guide to help her out. Ansa has a clear prose style, and she does a fine job of getting inside the women's heads; the chief problem is that, with the exception of Lily, her protagonists are unsympathetic. Lily herself overplays the religion card, while Sandra and LaShawndra are too selfish to rouse much sympathy. One thing they have in common: all three take the scenic route in their extended confessions, resulting in a book that is almost all past history with very little plot. Agent, Owen Laster. Harper Audio. (Apr. 2)
Forecast:Ansa, a Blackboard bestselling writer with a bit of literary flair, improves on the lightweight
Hand I Fan With here, but probably won't boost her readership much, though a strong marketing campaign and a 10-city author tour could help. More likely to enhance long-term sales—if it is picked up by a major distributor—is a forthcoming film adaptation of Ansa's award-winning first novel,
Baby of the Family, featuring Alfre Woodard, Pam Grier and Vanessa Williams, among others.
