Touch

Touch is one of the most fascinating books I’ve read this year. The idea behind Touch is that there exist “ghosts” who survive by possessing people’s bodies and transferring from body to body by touch. The narrator is one such ghost, who was beaten to death in an alleyway… but right before death gripped the shoulder of the attacker and thus lived on, in a new body.A couple hundred years later, the narrator has negotiated a deal with a woman named Josephine. The narrator gets the use of Josephine’s body for three months, and she gets ten thousand euros and a new start on life. Only, before the three months are up, Josephine is assassinated by a shadowy organization bent on destroying all ghosts. Instead of running, the narrator decides to go looking for the truth and to seek vengeance for her death.The narrator of Touch prefers to slip entirely inside the lives of the host bodies, taking both their names and genders and trying to construct a story of the body’s life. The narrator is never given a continuing gender, and all information about the original body is concealed, except for manner of death. The narrator is also nameless, although the shadowy organization calls them “Kepler.” The narrator (hence referred to as “Kepler” for convenience’s sake) tries to insist that they don’t have a self – they are which ever body they inhabit. Yet over the course of the book, Kepler does seem to come closer to admitting the truth that they exist as an individual, distinct from any of the lives they’ve stolen.Something else I really love about Touch is the moral ambiguity and how Kepler is not a very good person. They are accused of being a parasite, and this claim is never really refuted. They are a parasite – their entire existence relies upon stealing time from other people, sometimes up to years at a time. Instead of denying it, Kepler will try to say that they are better than others of their kind, or point to people like Josephine, who’s body they inhabited willingly. There’s moments in Touch when you realize just how horrifying Kepler’s manner of existing is – imagine waking up with time from your live gone and with no idea of what someone else has been doing with your body. But given the narrator, you see the story entirely through Kepler’s point of view, in which they try to paint themself as sympathetic. They will constantly try to justify their actions, but really they will do about anything to survive. And can you blame them for wanting to keep living? The entire process is fascinating and makes me want to reread the book at some point in the future.Touch is also very fast paced and incredibly gripping. It is not a short book, but I was driven to finish it in under twenty-four hours. Not only does Touch have an intriguing premise and some complex themes about identity and morality, it is also genuinely fun to read.I highly recommend Touch. It’s interesting and thrilling and by far one of the best new releases of 2015. I am so glad that I read it.

I am chagrined to write an unfavorable review for “Touch”. I looked forward to this work with great expectation following the author's previous and terrific work, “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August”. I wanted to like the book and tried hard to do so over the first two-thirds of the novel. However, I finally reached a point where I could go no further. And what was so terribly problematic?First, there is the nature of the central characters. They are entities called "ghosts" that move from person to person by touch, commandeering both the will and consciousness of the host. The ghost assumes complete control of the body and does whatever it wants with the protoplasm for as long as it wants. These specters largely have no qualms or ethical issues with inhabiting the “skins”, as they refer to human bodies. When the ghost departs, the host resumes consciousness only to find that in a subjective instant, days, weeks or even years have passed with varying degrees of associated bodily wear and tear. The ghost may leave some beneficial residual (money, a successful college entrance exam or such) or it may not (some hosts even die during the occupation). These entities are parasites by any reckoning. To my taste, parasites do not make attractive central characters.Second, the ghosts jump from host to host often quite quickly, making it difficult to keep track of who is what and where. North uses monikers for these entities which helps somewhat, but perplexity remains. The issue is aggravated by her technique (used successfully in “Harry August”) of skipping between times to provide additional information on the characters. However, the fundamentally confusing and unstable character identity combined with major “scene jumps” into unclear contexts combine to produce real problems with following the story line.Third, the protagonist ghost faces off with an antagonist ghost who is a homicidal psychopath. Sympathizing or empathizing with characters is important to the enjoyment of a novel. I had no interest in such distasteful beings.Finally, North missed a wonderful opportunity to shine a light on death, or rather the cheating of death. The main character "ghosted" out of it’s first death in an extraordinary scene with a reaction that amounted to "boy, that was close!" We humans are terrified by death. The unexplored country. A key aspect of all religion is that our core spirit, soul, consciousness eludes the oblivion that we equate with death. "Harry August" was wonderfully instructive around this point. Any tiny inroad by "Touch" into this fundamentally crucial issue might have outweighed the aforementioned faults. Unfortunately, this was a path not taken. I am indeed sorry for the poor review and hope that North's next effort is more appealing.

I wanted to fall in love with this book, I really did. I pre-ordered it and waited anxiously for its arrival. And its style and unique premise did not disappoint. North has an undeniable gift for rich, dense, literary prose. She also has a way with unique plot ideas, as witnessed both by this book and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. But, ultimately, I was disappointed. The book's main failing is that it mistakes a plot premise--the movement of a parasitic "soul" from one human body to another--for plot movement. It is this device, used so frequently it spins one's head--that kills the book, I think, and smothers what otherwise could be a brilliant book.Indeed, by the time the book is over, the soul Kepler has moved bodies surely at least 100 times. The book is not "fast-moving and thrilling," as its cover proclaims. With such frequent switching, the only thing a reader can focus on is the relationship that ever-so-slowly develops between Kepler and its would-be killer Nathan Coyle. That would, in fact, seem to be what North would have us focus on. But if that was her goal, then the book becomes even more of a disappointment because it ends in such a way that a resolution to that relationship (at least a satisfactory one) is not reached.All that being said, I still look forward to reading whatever North publishes in the future. If she can combine her way with words with a better way with plot, she will be a formidable author.