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itskatehill's review against another edition
1.0
The cover drew me in, and then when I read it was historical fiction, and took place in the Canada wilderness, and there were magical stories and witches and "what's out there in the forest?" types of themes I thought this would be a slam dunk.
I was wrong. It was hard to put down, but not for the right reasons. I got to about 100 pages before I needed to dnf. I kept reading how many people enjoyed it, and were calling it a "brilliant debut," and all the rest, but I just couldn't care less. I didn't like the writing style. It all moved so fast, and I didn't know who anyone was, or what was going on most the time, and it lacked a sort of color that I like to read in books I enjoy. And the grammar was bad at points? Aren't there editors for that? I haven't read a lot of magical realism before, and I hope to pick up another book that features it, but this one did not do it for me.
I also just have to add...what's with the author's photo? It's confusing. Why is he standing crotch deep in snow? Isn't he cold? Or, did he ask the photographer to photoshop him in a snow bank to go with the feeling of the novel? Either way...why? And why is half of his left wrist missing? This photo was more compelling than the story, imo.
I'll probably keep wondering if it was a mistake to put it down, but that's okay. There are so many other books in the world. This is more of a 1.3 rating for me, not an even 1 because I didn't outright hate it. I don't even like saying that about a book because it took the author time and diligence to write it, and as someone who has written a novel, I know how difficult it is. I guess I should just say this wasn't for me.
I was wrong. It was hard to put down, but not for the right reasons. I got to about 100 pages before I needed to dnf. I kept reading how many people enjoyed it, and were calling it a "brilliant debut," and all the rest, but I just couldn't care less. I didn't like the writing style. It all moved so fast, and I didn't know who anyone was, or what was going on most the time, and it lacked a sort of color that I like to read in books I enjoy. And the grammar was bad at points? Aren't there editors for that? I haven't read a lot of magical realism before, and I hope to pick up another book that features it, but this one did not do it for me.
I also just have to add...what's with the author's photo? It's confusing. Why is he standing crotch deep in snow? Isn't he cold? Or, did he ask the photographer to photoshop him in a snow bank to go with the feeling of the novel? Either way...why? And why is half of his left wrist missing? This photo was more compelling than the story, imo.
I'll probably keep wondering if it was a mistake to put it down, but that's okay. There are so many other books in the world. This is more of a 1.3 rating for me, not an even 1 because I didn't outright hate it. I don't even like saying that about a book because it took the author time and diligence to write it, and as someone who has written a novel, I know how difficult it is. I guess I should just say this wasn't for me.
bravelass85's review against another edition
3.0
This book is a piece of historical surrealism; it plays with the idea that places can take on epic proportions in generational stories. I liked the setting in Sawgamet and enjoyed seeing the place progress over time from wilderness to commonplace modernity. I'm not sure the narrative really ever moved me to any conclusions though; at least, not to any that I wasn't aware of in the first chapter or two. So, not quite enough movement in the story to be a great book. But enjoyable.
pearseanderson's review against another edition
5.0
Zentner is a god. I have an award-winning book review about this book, so I should probably go ahead and just copy it into here. Okay. Just gotta say, this is still one of my favorite books.
Though the year is still young, I believe that Touch by Alexi Zentner will be the best novel I read in 2015. Zentner, a local author, has built a temple to time, relationships, nature, and Americana in this close-to-perfect tale of magical realism. I met with Zentner to discuss writing and Touch.
All of Touch takes place in Sawgamet, a boomtown in the northern woods of Rupert’s Land, the frontier above Quebec. When the novel takes place is another story. Touch’s narrator is Stephen Boucher, a pastor refusing to stay asleep on the night his mother will die. She’s sick and old, and as her temperature boils over Stephen begins to reminisce on all his ancestors who have lived in Sawgamet. Through this literary device, Touch takes place in any moment Stephen remembers or remembers being told in the last seventy years, from the 1870s to the 1940s. The Boucher name is traced back from Stephen to his father Pierre, and then to his grandfather, Jeannot. Zentner refuses to view time as linear as he mixes the past with the present, along with inklings of the future in every chapter. It’s more a solvable mystery for the reader rather than a confusing Pollockian mess. Each page I turned revealed new motivations, atmospheric details, and Chekov guns that go off in the next seventy years of the story.
Another brilliant way Zentner plays with time is through the relationships in Touch. Death does not mean a characters is lost or that they stop growing and developing, it simply means they may not appear in person down the timeline. Mothers, uncles, and friends still are present as stories, memories, and spirits throughout any part of the novel. I never felt like death is an end, because as long as Stephen continues to talk about the town, the people live on forever. “When you think about people who are important to us, they’re still important to us even if they aren’t in front of us. So whether or not they are in the room, or whether or not they are alive, they can still be premier in our lives, and that’s one of the questions of the book,” Zentner told me when we sat down to talk. This concept is pulled off seamlessly, and gives the novel another layer of depth and beauty.
On the note of relationships, Touch has one of great uniqueness and importance. Along with the main characters (mostly the Boucher family) there is another key character who has its own relationship with everyone else—winter. Winter is omnipresent in every paragraph of Touch. No matter the circumstances or characters, winter will rear its epic head. All characters eventually have an intimate relationship with winter, knowing the way snow sticks to their skin and hoarfrost to their beards and sharp coldness to their bones. Winter shapes the gold-mining town of Sawgamet into something dangerous and foreboding. Every time the meltwaters flowed in Touch I knew the next terrifying winter would only be a few steps away, and with it, life-changing decisions by the novel’s characters. “People who are in trouble show themselves more clearly than people not in trouble,” Zentner said. “It’s really easy to be a wonderful guy when nothing is going wrong.”
Nature, not just winter, is ubiquitous in Sawgamet. Magic blends with the reality as Native American demons, such as the wehtikos and qallupilluit, roam the edge of the same forest men erect lumber mills and gold mines. “When you’re out in the woods and it’s dark, and you’re walking and you hear a branch break behind you, there’s a moment where you’re unsure if you believe in monsters. I think I was acknowledging the space on this country” Zenter explained to me, detailing how large North America is and how much, whether mythical or actual, can exist in the world. This reasoning was a driving force in including such creatures. Townsfolk accept such beings like they inhabit the same world as us. Zenter argued that people today do the same thing as the townsfolk do in Touch: accept the unexplainable. Airplanes, phones, self-driving cars, he said, are all forms of magic we choose to live with and not question. The shape-shifters and blood-drinkers of Inuit legend are, to Zentner, the magic that people lived with before magic was overtaken by technology, though the two are now indistinguishable.
Touch is brilliant in its portrayal of an Americana-rich atmosphere. Touch is very much a book about masculinity and fatherhood, and the atmosphere shows that. “The themes I keep coming back to are the themes I am interested in in my own life. I tend to write about family, and obligation, and duty, and the way those come in conflict with desire and wants.” Friends bruise themselves sliding down the amateur waterslide. Men ride on islands of floating timber downstream. Trailsmen pass each other in the woods and silently nod. These small details build a perfect small-town environment, one where the American Dream is still within reach and everything seems endless. Zentner pairs this environment with American folklore and myth in a perfect duo. Golden deer, songbird swarms, and singing dogs bring another element of beauty and magic to Sawgamet. Touch is a masterfully crafted novel I would recommend to whoever wants a good story about life, magic, and family that will leave you breathless, satisfied, and wanting more.
Though the year is still young, I believe that Touch by Alexi Zentner will be the best novel I read in 2015. Zentner, a local author, has built a temple to time, relationships, nature, and Americana in this close-to-perfect tale of magical realism. I met with Zentner to discuss writing and Touch.
All of Touch takes place in Sawgamet, a boomtown in the northern woods of Rupert’s Land, the frontier above Quebec. When the novel takes place is another story. Touch’s narrator is Stephen Boucher, a pastor refusing to stay asleep on the night his mother will die. She’s sick and old, and as her temperature boils over Stephen begins to reminisce on all his ancestors who have lived in Sawgamet. Through this literary device, Touch takes place in any moment Stephen remembers or remembers being told in the last seventy years, from the 1870s to the 1940s. The Boucher name is traced back from Stephen to his father Pierre, and then to his grandfather, Jeannot. Zentner refuses to view time as linear as he mixes the past with the present, along with inklings of the future in every chapter. It’s more a solvable mystery for the reader rather than a confusing Pollockian mess. Each page I turned revealed new motivations, atmospheric details, and Chekov guns that go off in the next seventy years of the story.
Another brilliant way Zentner plays with time is through the relationships in Touch. Death does not mean a characters is lost or that they stop growing and developing, it simply means they may not appear in person down the timeline. Mothers, uncles, and friends still are present as stories, memories, and spirits throughout any part of the novel. I never felt like death is an end, because as long as Stephen continues to talk about the town, the people live on forever. “When you think about people who are important to us, they’re still important to us even if they aren’t in front of us. So whether or not they are in the room, or whether or not they are alive, they can still be premier in our lives, and that’s one of the questions of the book,” Zentner told me when we sat down to talk. This concept is pulled off seamlessly, and gives the novel another layer of depth and beauty.
On the note of relationships, Touch has one of great uniqueness and importance. Along with the main characters (mostly the Boucher family) there is another key character who has its own relationship with everyone else—winter. Winter is omnipresent in every paragraph of Touch. No matter the circumstances or characters, winter will rear its epic head. All characters eventually have an intimate relationship with winter, knowing the way snow sticks to their skin and hoarfrost to their beards and sharp coldness to their bones. Winter shapes the gold-mining town of Sawgamet into something dangerous and foreboding. Every time the meltwaters flowed in Touch I knew the next terrifying winter would only be a few steps away, and with it, life-changing decisions by the novel’s characters. “People who are in trouble show themselves more clearly than people not in trouble,” Zentner said. “It’s really easy to be a wonderful guy when nothing is going wrong.”
Nature, not just winter, is ubiquitous in Sawgamet. Magic blends with the reality as Native American demons, such as the wehtikos and qallupilluit, roam the edge of the same forest men erect lumber mills and gold mines. “When you’re out in the woods and it’s dark, and you’re walking and you hear a branch break behind you, there’s a moment where you’re unsure if you believe in monsters. I think I was acknowledging the space on this country” Zenter explained to me, detailing how large North America is and how much, whether mythical or actual, can exist in the world. This reasoning was a driving force in including such creatures. Townsfolk accept such beings like they inhabit the same world as us. Zenter argued that people today do the same thing as the townsfolk do in Touch: accept the unexplainable. Airplanes, phones, self-driving cars, he said, are all forms of magic we choose to live with and not question. The shape-shifters and blood-drinkers of Inuit legend are, to Zentner, the magic that people lived with before magic was overtaken by technology, though the two are now indistinguishable.
Touch is brilliant in its portrayal of an Americana-rich atmosphere. Touch is very much a book about masculinity and fatherhood, and the atmosphere shows that. “The themes I keep coming back to are the themes I am interested in in my own life. I tend to write about family, and obligation, and duty, and the way those come in conflict with desire and wants.” Friends bruise themselves sliding down the amateur waterslide. Men ride on islands of floating timber downstream. Trailsmen pass each other in the woods and silently nod. These small details build a perfect small-town environment, one where the American Dream is still within reach and everything seems endless. Zentner pairs this environment with American folklore and myth in a perfect duo. Golden deer, songbird swarms, and singing dogs bring another element of beauty and magic to Sawgamet. Touch is a masterfully crafted novel I would recommend to whoever wants a good story about life, magic, and family that will leave you breathless, satisfied, and wanting more.
bmgoodyear's review against another edition
1.0
It's funny, I usually start out my reviews with a short little blurb of my own just rehashing the particulars of the story. With 'Touch' though, this story was so all over the place that I can't adequately explain it's basis; it simply eludes me. The official summary feels deceiving and makes it sound ripe with potential... but it never lived up it, that's for sure. I truly feel as if I've been hoodwinked. I blame the stunning cover! *shakes fist* But honestly, I recall going through this magical realism stage and added practically every book tagged as such. This is one of them. I'm thinking that if the author isn't Sarah Addison Allen, then I apparently don't care much for magical realism.
It should be said that according to the Reading Group Discussion questions (yeah, I read them in hopes that it would clarify some things. I was wrong) this is considered more along the lines of mythical realism as it incorporates Inuit mythology. While I could say that the incorporation of mythological elements may give it a smidgen of credibility in comparison to strange magical stuff happening for no apparent reason, it was a poorly managed addition to the story. The story is centered around this small town in the Canadian wilderness which came into existence only after gold was discovered. It's a story about survival. But then out of nowhere some strange creature would pop up and it was like mental whiplash. Like the mahaha (actual creatures name, I wasn't just laughing):
"They tickle you until all your breath is gone. Leave you dead, but with a smile."
Holy freaky shit. That's the stuff of nightmares. But I was intrigued and wanted to know more so I googled this scary beasty with the funny name. The page I found described the mahaha in basically the exact same way the author did in the book. Like it was copied. And that kind of killed the cool out of it. To me, magical realism IS the story, it's incorporated and intertwined into the very fabric of the story. But all the magical elements in Touch felt like a strange and ill-fitting addition that was added as an afterthought to an otherwise contemporary tale of survival.
The writing style itself, apart from the actual story, was lacking a much needed finesse. The tale was not linear and bounced all over the place without any indication as to whether we were back in the present tense or still being told the story of the past. The point of view was a poor choice as well. The grandson is the narrator retelling his grandfather's story. Why not just have the grandfather tell his own story? Even though the grandfather told him his story it seemed unlikely that he would know as many details as he did. There were also strange leaps to other characters and telling the story through there eyes which definitely made it implausible as his grandfather wasn't even present in those instances.
While the writing reflected definite potential, it was too unpolished for me to enjoy. I can't remember the last time (if ever) I finished a novel and honestly had absolutely no clue the purpose or meaning of it. So much of this story was too farcical in its inconceivability for me to garner any sort of entertainment. Many people have lauded this book for it's eerie, haunting qualities but ultimately this left me chilled for all the wrong reasons.
It should be said that according to the Reading Group Discussion questions (yeah, I read them in hopes that it would clarify some things. I was wrong) this is considered more along the lines of mythical realism as it incorporates Inuit mythology. While I could say that the incorporation of mythological elements may give it a smidgen of credibility in comparison to strange magical stuff happening for no apparent reason, it was a poorly managed addition to the story. The story is centered around this small town in the Canadian wilderness which came into existence only after gold was discovered. It's a story about survival. But then out of nowhere some strange creature would pop up and it was like mental whiplash. Like the mahaha (actual creatures name, I wasn't just laughing):
"They tickle you until all your breath is gone. Leave you dead, but with a smile."
Holy freaky shit. That's the stuff of nightmares. But I was intrigued and wanted to know more so I googled this scary beasty with the funny name. The page I found described the mahaha in basically the exact same way the author did in the book. Like it was copied. And that kind of killed the cool out of it. To me, magical realism IS the story, it's incorporated and intertwined into the very fabric of the story. But all the magical elements in Touch felt like a strange and ill-fitting addition that was added as an afterthought to an otherwise contemporary tale of survival.
The writing style itself, apart from the actual story, was lacking a much needed finesse. The tale was not linear and bounced all over the place without any indication as to whether we were back in the present tense or still being told the story of the past. The point of view was a poor choice as well. The grandson is the narrator retelling his grandfather's story. Why not just have the grandfather tell his own story? Even though the grandfather told him his story it seemed unlikely that he would know as many details as he did. There were also strange leaps to other characters and telling the story through there eyes which definitely made it implausible as his grandfather wasn't even present in those instances.
While the writing reflected definite potential, it was too unpolished for me to enjoy. I can't remember the last time (if ever) I finished a novel and honestly had absolutely no clue the purpose or meaning of it. So much of this story was too farcical in its inconceivability for me to garner any sort of entertainment. Many people have lauded this book for it's eerie, haunting qualities but ultimately this left me chilled for all the wrong reasons.
vivacious_reads's review
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
ldv's review
4.0
Different.
Three plot lines: the narrative one, set in WWII in the narrator's adolescent home where he's tending to his dying mother, reflecting back in preparation for her eulogy.
He reflects back on the winter his mother remarries and his grandfather returns. He also weaves in stories of his grandfather's youth and the town's origins with his father's youth. All of this, plus the fact that the narrator is a priest, gives the story credibility. Credibility is essential, because the myths the boy/man tells are fantasic and otherwise unbelievable. Yet I found myself believing to some extent.
Most of the story takes place during winter scenes, so it makes sense to read it in winter.
My one pet peeve is that when the grandfather and boy and his cousin find a particular tree, the grandfather points to "gashes" high up in the tree and claims that he was last at the tree when the gashes were at his knees. Trees do not grow up this way; new cells are added at the top, not the bottom, so the gashes would still be knee level, but they'd probably be grown over by the widening trunk and undiscernible.
Everything else about the book is good.
Three plot lines: the narrative one, set in WWII in the narrator's adolescent home where he's tending to his dying mother, reflecting back in preparation for her eulogy.
He reflects back on the winter his mother remarries and his grandfather returns. He also weaves in stories of his grandfather's youth and the town's origins with his father's youth. All of this, plus the fact that the narrator is a priest, gives the story credibility. Credibility is essential, because the myths the boy/man tells are fantasic and otherwise unbelievable. Yet I found myself believing to some extent.
Most of the story takes place during winter scenes, so it makes sense to read it in winter.
My one pet peeve is that when the grandfather and boy and his cousin find a particular tree, the grandfather points to "gashes" high up in the tree and claims that he was last at the tree when the gashes were at his knees. Trees do not grow up this way; new cells are added at the top, not the bottom, so the gashes would still be knee level, but they'd probably be grown over by the widening trunk and undiscernible.
Everything else about the book is good.
lisagray68's review
4.0
What beautiful, evocative writing we have here from this brand new author. At first, it seems like another in the "genre" of a fictional looking back on your life type book. And it is -- a recollection of boyhood and family history in a cold Canadian mining town. Beautiful, lyrical language.
There's another aspect here too -- superstition, creatures from the woods, sightings of strange mythical creatures. This isn't as much my cup of tea, but it's brilliantly handled by the author, never really getting into the discussion of whether or not these things are actually real or not....or just superstition from a people clear-cutting the forest. Series of events that are unexplainable are explained by the townspeople through these myths, but you as the reader don't necessarily have to buy into it as truth. Very well done, and not overdone.
I must say, I look forward to more by this new author. He has a way with words that is just glorious.
There's another aspect here too -- superstition, creatures from the woods, sightings of strange mythical creatures. This isn't as much my cup of tea, but it's brilliantly handled by the author, never really getting into the discussion of whether or not these things are actually real or not....or just superstition from a people clear-cutting the forest. Series of events that are unexplainable are explained by the townspeople through these myths, but you as the reader don't necessarily have to buy into it as truth. Very well done, and not overdone.
I must say, I look forward to more by this new author. He has a way with words that is just glorious.
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