Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him.

Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him by Sandra Jackson-Okopu Ballantine/One World, January 2001, $24,00, ISBN 0-345-42896-X

In the eyes of the women who have had the good fortune--or misfortune, depending on your age or build--to experience "Hot Johnny" right up close and personal, there was much more to the man than his reputation as a sweet-talking Don Juan. Sandra Jackson Opoku, who scored big with her prize-winning mythic first novel, The River Where Blood Is Born (Random House, 1998), examines the fictional life of Hot Johnny through the confessions of eighteen very different women. Each woman has her own take on "the tall yellow Romeo with the green Smokey Robinson eyes," and all are smitten.

Opoku, a Chicago-based poet, screenwriter and journalist is particularly careful to deepen the emotional and spiritual terrain of her leading male character by showcasing him in a wealth of time periods, settings and situations. Whether he's a hopeful teen basketball player, a cunning womanizer, doting father or a wise griot, Hot Johnny holds our interest because he reflects the many roles men are asked to assume in meeting the demands of life and society.

And what about these women? It all comes back to them, for it is through their voices that the novel largely succeeds and occasionally excels. Listen to the lineup: Lola Belle, Tree, Cinnamon, Miz Jones, Jonavis, Merilee, Carmen Quintana, Sister Baby, Peaches, Sanctuary, Miracle, Stone Soup, Destiny, Gracita Reina, Malaika and Cara. Like her first novel, this worthy sophomore effort spans the globe, hopping from the States, Europe and the Phillipines to Mother Africa.

Opoku, a specialist on the subject of the African Diaspora, makes astute comments on a wide range of topics like Yankee imperialism, black sexual myths, lesbianism, wiggers, female circumcision, patriarchical miscues, African tribalism and pride. When she wanders into these realms, the book hits a few bumps and goes off track but the educational value of the text makes it all worthwhile reading. Opoku is as determined to provoke as she is to entertain and Hot Johnny is a deceptively complex read that, by virtue of the puzzle of identity at its core, becomes a page-turner.

So just who is this Hot Johnny and why do the women love him so? Getting to the revelation of that answer is only part of the fun here. Deciphering the individual mysteries of each woman involved with the honey-colored heartbreaker only provides deeper evidence of the value of Opoku's deep commitment to explore racial, sexual, social and political issues on the printed page. This is Opoku boldly rifting at the mike, totally unafraid and sassy.

Robert Fleming is the author of The African American Writer's Handbook and The Wisdom of Ancestors.