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A review by ldv
Touch by Alexi Zentner
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.