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Touch

by Alexi Zentner (Goodreads Author), Alexi Zenter

3.7 of 5 stars 3.70 · rating details · 674 ratings · 196 reviews

NOMINEE 2011 – Scotiabank Giller Prize

Touch begins with Stephen, an Anglican priest, returning from Vancouver to the northern BC town of Sawgamet where he grew up, just in time for his mother’s death.

Sawgamet was founded by Stephen’s grandfather Jeannot, when he heard a voice in the woods calling his name and his dog, Flaireur, refused to take another step. Back then, as...more NOMINEE 2011 – Scotiabank Giller Prize

Touch begins with Stephen, an Anglican priest, returning from Vancouver to the northern BC town of Sawgamet where he grew up, just in time for his mother’s death.

Sawgamet was founded by Stephen’s grandfather Jeannot, when he heard a voice in the woods calling his name and his dog, Flaireur, refused to take another step. Back then, as Stephen remembers it from the stories passed down to him, men were giants, or even gods, striving to tame the land. The world of Sawgamet was enchanted, alive with qallupilluit and ijirait, sea-witches and shape-shifters; Jeannot saw caribou covered with gold dust and found gold nuggets the size of boulders. Sometimes winter refused to end, and blizzards buried the whole town in snow for months at a time. Sawgamet was a place where Jeannot had to kill a man twice and then carry the bones around with him, bound in cloth, to make sure he stayed dead.

Years later, with his mother on her deathbed, Stephen tries to piece together the past from myths and stories and memories that he’s not sure he can trust. And not everything is magical: if life in Jeannot’s Sawgamet was richer and brighter than it seems for Stephen now, it was also harder and more brutal, with both fire and ice claiming too many lives before their time. Jeannot never knew his son, Pierre, Stephen’s father, who was himself maimed in a logging accident; Stephen’s childhood was marked by tragic loss, and a lasting pain he must now confront as he considers how to pass Jeannot’s stories on to his own daughters.

A chronicle of the birth of a town and the passing of a way of being in the world, Touch is unique, compelling and full of marvels. But this book captures the most personal moments in life as well as the most dramatic ones – Alexi Zentner conveys three generations of a family’s intimate emotional experience in language that pierces the heart. This beautiful and moving novel is a great story told by a natural storyteller, and to read Touch is to enter an enthralling world that you’ll never want to leave.(less)

Hardcover, 272 pages

Published April 12th 2011 by Knopf Canada (first published April 1st 2011)

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Mar 25, 2012 Kate rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-fantasy, author-gender-male, read-in-2011, author-nationality-canada, genre-historical, genre-rural-fantasy, misc-did-not-finish, pov-first-person, publisher-indie, rating-2-stars, tense-past, set-in-canada, reviewed-by-iamfantastikate

Should I read it? I don't think so. Zentner has potential as a writer, but he's not as polished as he could be. Perhaps try a future book of his.

What's the short and skinny of it? Official summary: "In Sawgamet, a north woods boomtown gone bust, the cold of winter breaks the glass of the schoolhouse thermometer, and the dangers of working in the cuts are overshadowed by the mysteries and magic lurking in the woods. Stephen, a pastor, is at home on the eve of his mother's funeral, thirty years af...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

See this review on 1776books.net...
http://1776books.blogspot.com/2011/04...

How do you know what is real and what is not? That is the question posed to readers of Alexi Zentner's Touch. One never knows who (or what) is going to pop up in the woods of Sawgamet. Your deceased grandmother? A golden caribou?

The setting is the best thing (to me) about Touch. Zentner vividly describes the Sawgamet woods through the seasons, including the utterly dangerous winters. This is the story of Stephen, a pastor...more

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Sep 29, 2012 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: debut, fiction

Touch, by Alexi Zentner is the kind of novel I want to discuss with a friend. Though I loved the lyrical style and mythical realism (author's definition) of this story set in the harsh wilderness of northern British Columbia, I have come away with questions and may not truly understand what happened here. My plan is to go back and listen to the author interviews again and see what I can learn.

There are some books that I am better off reading in large chunks rather than the bits and pieces that l...more Touch, by Alexi Zentner is the kind of novel I want to discuss with a friend. Though I loved the lyrical style and mythical realism (author's definition) of this story set in the harsh wilderness of northern British Columbia, I have come away with questions and may not truly understand what happened here. My plan is to go back and listen to the author interviews again and see what I can learn.

There are some books that I am better off reading in large chunks rather than the bits and pieces that life sometimes allows. This is one of them. A debut, Touch is only 264 pages, so not overly long and could be read in a day or two by most readers. My week of chopped up late night reading might have done some injustice to the whole. I found myself going back and re-reading to get it.

Set in the fictional town of Sawgamet, the narrator, Stephen, an Anglican pastor has come home with his family to await the imminent death of his mother. As he sits by her bedside he fills us in on the history of his forebears and the settlement of Sawgamet by his grandfather, Jeannot. Jeannot walks across the country with a dog, stolen from a witch, and establishes Sawgamet, eventually leaving this gone bust logging town only to come back later to raise his wife from the dead.

Touch is a multi-layered, multi-generational tale, told in present day and flashbacks of story-telling to Stephen by both his father and grandfather. The story begins as Stephen tells us about his father, the foreman of this logging community, a job he received after a logging accident left him with no other option. The winter Stephen is ten is not unusual for Sawgamet, cold and freezing. So cold that if you chop a hole in the river for running water, it quickly freezes over. This plays out to a a horrific accident that changes the course of Stephens' life and of those around him. This scene is quite powerful and one I won't forget and yet, this may not be the most troublesome scene for some. There is more to come as winter digs in with all its brutal harshness in another piece of the story.

Touch is told much like the best of folklore and I was fascinated by the creatures introduced here. They are all a bit creepy but somehow accepted, the mahaha and wehtiko, the ijirait, the adlet , were all new to me. The Qallupilluit, were somewhat familiar from a story by Robert Munsch. These are female monsters who grab children who go to close to the water or sea without their parents. Unless I'm getting confused I think Zentner gives Qallupilluit different powers. I mentioned that somehow these creatures are accepted and for me hold some delight. They are much like the characters my father would phantom in storytelling to raise the hairs on my neck as a child; the evil that lurks in the dark and might gobble me up if I was not a good girl or watchful.

In addition to some very interesting human characters, the cold harsh, snowy winters are also key players. This weather sets the tone and is very atmospheric. Spanning a time frame of the late 1800's to the years of World War II, this slim novel covers many topics, logging (fascinating), gold, family, truth, love, marriage, and survival. It is about how stories are handed down from generation to generation and how those stories change in the telling, leaving us with questions of what is truth and what is myth. The author feels most stories start as truth and somehow get retold with something of the truth remaining. I agree.

Touch somehow escaped me until I heard an interview with Zentner on Shelagh Rogers on The Next Chapter. I immediately sought it out and am glad I did. (less)

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Mar 06, 2012 Doreen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen Boucher returns with his wife and three children to his remote northern B.C. hometown of Sawgamet to replace his stepfather as the Anglican minister. As he spends time with his mother in her last days, he reminisces about his childhood 30 years earlier, including the deaths of his father and sister. Another significant event is the return of Jeannot, Stephen's paternal grandfather. The return of this larger-than-life character leads to the telling of his life in Sawgamet, which he founde...more Stephen Boucher returns with his wife and three children to his remote northern B.C. hometown of Sawgamet to replace his stepfather as the Anglican minister. As he spends time with his mother in her last days, he reminisces about his childhood 30 years earlier, including the deaths of his father and sister. Another significant event is the return of Jeannot, Stephen's paternal grandfather. The return of this larger-than-life character leads to the telling of his life in Sawgamet, which he founded, until the death of his wife Martine.

On the one hand the book is historical fiction, an ode to a mining/logging town and the hardships of its inhabitants, and a saga of the tragedies and triumphs of three generations of a family. It is a story about family stories and memories passed from one generation to the next, "memories [that] are another way to raise the dead." The stories are full of great love, endurance, and unimaginable loss.

The novel is also a fantasy imbued with Inuit mythology. The wilderness is a character of mystery beyond modern rationality, often indifferent but sometimes generous and sometimes malicious. It is populated by a golden caribou, malevolent wood spirits, river demons, a spring with syrupy sweet water, and the ghost of a miner who was murdered and cannibalized.

Some of the myths struck a chord, reminding me of stories told to me fifty years ago by my lumberjack grandfather, so I had no difficulty accepting the magic realism elements. The author also does not force the reader to believe: the narrator admits "it is not hard to ascribe some meaning to [elements of nature like snow]" but "perhaps the snow was just snow." What bothered me is some of the events in the novel. Could a town be buried under 50 feet of snow for over seven months? Could so many people survive?

Despite the glowing reviews of many people, I found that this book just didn't "Touch" me. The characters all felt distant; I did not feel an emotional connection with any of them. (less)

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Jul 25, 2011 Gienna rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Plucked this slim novel on a whim from the new books table at the library; knew absolutely nothing about book or author. A happy happenstance--it is one of the most memorable books I've read in a while.

Alexi Zentner eases you into the narrative, enchants with superb story-telling, and introduces the magical elements slowly and subtly as the plot progresses. A plain-spoken and earnest narrator makes it easy for to suspend disbelief and get lost in the vivid and mesmirizing landscape, characters,...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Patsy Gantt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Patsy by: won through GoodReads

This one is different and I loved it. Very glad to have won an advance copy through GoodReads. This book is a story about lovers, families, friends, and loners. The main storyteller, Stephen, is a priest returning to his hometown as his mother is dying. As the main narrator of the story, we find out Stephen's life story and more. Other voices that fill in the blanks come into play and they tell the story of Stephen's father and grandfather, the town founder. We learn about logging and we are int...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Pooker rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: canada, fiction

Found in my mailbox on April 24/12 (B'day surprise from DJO). Started reading this morning. Got all nostalgic with memories of my father and the sight of him standing on the log booms he brought into our bay on the way to the sawmill - logs that would be made into lumber for the new home he built for us when I was 6.

April 28, 2012:

I finished this book yesterday, but part way through my reading, I had tweeted on Twitter that I was examining my fingertips for gold dust at every turn of the page. W...more

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Dec 04, 2011 Lorraine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: z2011, historical-fiction

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/...more

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Jun 11, 2011 BookBliss rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The review on the flap of this book really caught my attention and I couldn't wait to read it, I was convinced I was going to be completely mesmerised by Touch, unfortunately this didn't happen, I just don't feel like it lived up to my expectations, by quite a long way. Although there is some wonderful descriptive imagery within the novel I found that the author has for the most part ignored the first rule of novel writing (no, not "write what you know) "show don't tell". Most of the stories are...more

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May 20, 2011 g rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ecclesiastics, cold, fantastical-magical

Touch is an easy, enjoyable read. A pastor returns to the icy town of his youth, to his mother's deathbed. The novel weaves together the magical and tragic stories of his grandfather (founder of the town), his parents, his stepfather, and his own childhood--all permeated by harsh, dangerous winters that test each character in turn.

The chronological back-and-forth isn't always graceful; there wasn't all that much centralized suspense (though I kept turning pages, so Zentner was doing something ri...more

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Apr 03, 2011 Sheena rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was lucky enough to recive one of a few advance reader copies of the book Touch By Alexi Zentner.
The book is about Stephen, an Anglican Priest, basically narrarating three generations of his family; himself, father and grandfather living in the
boomtown Sawgament that Stephen's grandfather Jeanott discovered when he was 16. The book tells of the stories his father and grandfather told him when he was
young, but through the narration he adds his own wonder. The stories off family life and tra...more

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May 06, 2011 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Telling the story of three generations — the narrator's own life, his father's, and his grandfather's — Touch slips backward and forward in time gently as a man reminisces about the humorous story of his parents' wedding, the founding of the town he has lived in for most of his life, the legendary blizzard lasting more than half a year, and the tragically gruesome and horrific consequences and aftermath of that winter. Infused within all of this is a gentle, wondrous element of folklore, legend,...more

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Mar 08, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, canadian, first-reads

I won this book through the Goodreads giveaway and I absolutely adored it. I'm not going to lie; I consider a lot of Canadian fiction to be excessively drab and depressing, seemingly for the sake of it, but this was a breath of fresh air. Certainly, there are depressing parts to this story, but I never felt overwhelmed by them.

I particularly enjoyed the mystical aspect of the book. There are a lot of creatures from Native American/Canadian folklore scattered throughout the narrative, and I think...more

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Jun 10, 2011 Jeanne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: magical-realism

What a fabulous read! Where do I start? The story is set in a small village in northern British Columbia and, given my time spent in northern Minnesota as a child, I appreciated Zentner's accurate, sensuous ("a buttery moon"), and vivid descriptions of the wooded landscape and the harsh and unyielding winters. I got a sense of being there once more, amongst the fragrant pines. Then there's the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night in those woods, except in "Touch" they do more than just casually rais...more

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May 16, 2011 Mark Rice rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Touch is the sort of novel that Salman Rushdie might have produced if he'd been raised in the Canadian wilderness rather than India and England. Alexi Zentner's descriptive writing is as evocative and passionate as Rushdie's. Both authors' stories are rooted in the real world but contain subtle fantasy elements that are not too far-fetched to be believable. Zentner's biggest strength as a writer is his ability to describe scene, which in Touch is the forest around the Canadian town of Sawgamet....more

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Jun 13, 2011 Pam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

The novel is the reminiscing from Stephen, and Anglican priest, who has returned to his hometown, Sawgamet, in Canada, to be at his mother’s side as she dies.

He recounts the stories, of Jeannot, his grandfather, who started the town of Sawgamet. Along with his grandfather there are stories of his father, Pierre, a logger, his sister Marie, and all of the people that come in and out of their lives.

There are tales of surviving the harsh winters, or in some cases, not surviving. But the bleak land...more

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Mar 30, 2011 Grace rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

I won this book in a good reads giveaway. It is an advance reading copy (my first one yayyyy. At first I was confused by this book, the little summary on the back confused me to no end, but I just decided to read the book as if I had no pre-existing information on it. As I got further into the book I really began becoming engrossed in it, I became enchanted by the past story of Jeannot and Martine, Sawgamert in it's early days.I really loved how the love between the married couples was portrayed...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Marvin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religion

This beautifully written novel is narrated by an Anglican pastor, though there's precious little traditional religion in it. The story begins, like John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River, with a drowning in a lumber camp, and, like Twisted River, it's about the stories that connect generations. Otherwise, though, this is very different in tone & substance. It has even more touches of magic than an Irving novel, and they're not at all whimsical, as they usually are in an Irving novel. This...more

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Apr 18, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 g...more

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Aug 20, 2011 Eva rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: magical-realism, poignant, read-in-2011

Touch, Alexi Zentner's debut novel is a wonderful mix of Grimm-like folk lore and family history which follows three generations of a family - a son, his parents and his grandparents - during the treacherous winters of the Canadian wilderness.

Stephen, an Anglican priest has returned home on the eve of his mother's death and while he keeps vigil at her bedside he recalls his childhood and family stories. The way in which Stephen's narration skips from memory to memory as actual recollection does...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Kimberly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book got under my skin in a deep way and I formed a deep attachment and bond with its characters. I still feel them with me even though I am finished with the book. Although the pacing was slower than I usually like and could be refined a bit, I found this book to be a page-turner of a different sort. It was not a super-fast adrenaline ride - yet at the close of each chapter I felt the need to keep reading. I could put off moving on to the next chapter until the next day - so it wasn't an I...more

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Sep 07, 2011 Kathy Hiester rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stephen Boucher, the recently hired pastor of a church in Sawgamet, has come home to be with his mother as she lives her last days. During his last night with her he flashbacks to the events that have ruined his life and the lives of those who live and work in the town. Late into the night Stephen begins the story of three generations of the Boucher family. His grandfather came here to find his wealth in gold but found love instead. His father, who neglected as a baby, strives to be everything t...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Alexis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

I sort of feel like I wasn't able to give this beautiful book the attention it deserved because I had a lot going on when I was trying to read it. It was the story of a family in a logging town called Sawgamet. Various tragedies befall the family, and they have to face the elements; snow, and fire.

The ax is practically a character in this book.

I loved the writing, the darkness of the story and the way that ghosts and creatures that live in the forest came to life. There are some images in the b...more

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Mar 22, 2011 Tracy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: march-2011

I was very excited to read this as I won the ARC here on Goodreads...my first win!

I will start off saying that this is not something I would normally be drawn to. However, I really did enjoy it. This is a true storytellers story. I found the whole reality of what these people lived through fascinating. I think we all take for granted the many aspects of modern day life. I am not so sure I could handle everything this family lived through. I found Alexi Zentner's writing to be beautiful and heart...more

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Oct 11, 2011 Jo Bennie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In less deft hands Zentner's plot is historical romantic fiction, a man sits by the bedside of his dying mother recalling his memories of the small northern logging town founded by his grandfather. There is drama and pathos, hard winters, terrible choices and losses set against the backdrop of goldrushes and lost dreams. But this book is far more than that, invoking the spirits of the forests and the mythology of a family where the fantastical and the everyday live side by side. Zentner speaks t...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Vikki rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a beautifully written book. The descriptions of the cold in Canada were exceptional. This was a debut novel for author Alexi Zentner. He will be someone to watch. Touch is the story of three generations of a family actually settling the land in Sawgamet. It skips back and forth between these generations. There are legends and sightings of mahahas,monsters, and witches in these woods. But the dedication that Zentner makes to his wife,"the reason why everything I write is really about lo...more

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Nov 22, 2011 Linda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

I would like to say that I really liked this book because it started off quite interesting but then it seemed that most of the rest of it took place in a dream state. It was hard to tell what was real and what was not real. Indian legends were told and ghosts haunted and murdered. I felt no real empathy for any of the characters yet I thought the story had a great deal of potential for making me like them. I was intrigued enough to finish the book but that is all. The author did a great job of h...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Connie Crosby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

I thoroughly enjoyed this book--it was a fast, compelling read. I enjoyed how the stories of the three generations were intertwined and advanced together. I had to pay close attention to which story was being told at any given time; however, I thought this made for a richer storytelling than if it had been simply told chronologically. I would have liked to know more about Stephen (the grandson), but perhaps there are more stories to still be told here.

I would class this as Canadian wilderness...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Inoli rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: do-not-own-yet, eerie-fascinating_presence-affectin, historical-fiction, magical-realism

Excellent protrayal of what it must have been like for the first of the European immigrants to move to the further reaches of Western Canada during the times of the several gold rushes. It's not about the populating of the land. It's not about the finding of gold. It's more about the relationship of three generations of a family with an extremely harsh, deadly environment and the spirits and creatures of an unknown land. It's a very original style of telling that I have a hard time classifying....more

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Nov 16, 2011 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have assorted feelings toward this book. Jeannot;s character is by far the novel's redeeming quality; he's well written, engaging and endearing. Elements of the narrative are bogged down by incessant reference to the weather and whilst I can appreciate the landscape forms an intrinsic part of the Sawgamet experience, it tended to snow in my interest. I desperately wanted more information about the legends surrounding the woods; particularly those relating to reincarnation (this rears its head...more

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About Alexi Zentner

Alexi Zentner is the winner of the 2008 Narrative Prize and 2008 O. Henry Prize, and his fiction has been featured in The Atlantic and Tin House. Alexi was born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario, and currently lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife and two daughters. He holds both Canadian and American citizenship.

Alexi’s first novel, Touch, will be published in Spring of 2011 in the USA by W.W....more

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