Tom Gatten

The Kojo Hand Tom Gatten

Tom Gatten's The Kojo Hand is a novel about people pursuing their dreams--mainlya young woman in college and her friend and out-of-the classroom teacher KojoDedu, a scholar from Ghana with a calling to produce positive socialchange.¿ The story is told from the pointof view of Deanie Hollins, a nineteen-year-old student at a fictionaluniversity on Long Island.¿ The storytakes place in the spring and summer of 1972 and moves forward throughquestions and answers raised by Kojo's possible connection with a coup d' etat in his homeland and byDeanie's part-time work as a model in New York City. JD Reed, Senior Editor, Time Magazine, and author of Free Fall and Pursuit of D. B. Cooper, says of the manuscript: "The Kojo Hand is a wonderful novel.¿ It's a kind of Shane for baby-boomers with a neat twist.¿ Making teacher and student different sexes is a fine touch.¿ Kojo is a truly magnificent character.¿ I wish I'd known him.¿ The cast is great."John Stewart, Professor ofAfrican-American and African Studies, Department of Anthropology, University ofCalifornia, Davis, and author of Last Cool Days, Curving Road, Forthe Ancestors, and Looking for Josephine, says of the manuscript: ". . . the range of experiences and the ways the characters persist in their worldare handled with considerable insight.¿There are some nice things there."Dr. Marcellette G. Williams, Interim Chancellor and Professor of English and Comparative Literature, TheUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst, says of the manuscript: "Gatten'shandling of his female narrator's point of view is deft and refreshingly'faithful to the grain' (to borrow from Kojo Dedu's phrasing), as ishis handling of the narrator's feelings about love in her relationship with herlover, managing even to 'incorporate the knots into the overalldesign.'