Tom Gatten

Tom Gattens The Kojo Hand is a novel about people pursuing their dreams--mainly a young woman in college and her friend and out-of-the classroom teacher Kojo Dedu, a scholar from Ghana with a calling to produce positive social change.

The story is told from the point of view of Deanie Hollins, a nineteen-year-old student at a fictional university on Long Island.The story takes place in the spring and summer of 1972 and moves forward through questions and answers raised by Kojos possible connection with a coup d etat in his homeland and by Deanies 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.Its 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 Id known him.The cast is great.

John Stewart, Professor of African-American and African Studies, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, and author of Last Cool Days, Curving Road, For the Ancestors, and Looking for Josephine, says of the manuscript: . . . the range of experiences and the ways the characters persist in their world are handled with considerable insight.There are some nice things there.

Dr. Marcellette G. Williams, Interim Chancellor and Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, says of the manuscript: Gatten's handling of his female narrator's point of view is deft and refreshingly "faithful to the grain" (to borrow from Kojo Dedus phrasing), as is his handling of the narrator's feelings about love in her relationship with her lover, managing even to "incorporate the knots into the overall design."