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Touch

by Gayleen Froese

Gayleen Froese’s Touch is dark and outlandish, yet compelling in the human intimacy that it captures. This Saskatchewan author’s first novel is an unusual detective story that hinges on the psychic connection between touch and human emotion. Froese writes: “Somebody feels something so strongly that it pours out and gets all over whatever they’re touching. That moment and the way they felt stays there.”

Anna Gareau, the novel’s protagonist, struggles with these lingering moments. She possesses the burdensome gift of experiencing other people’s pain by touching their personal items. Gareau’s problems only worsen when she finds herself in the midst of a murder mystery, working with celebrity gossip Paul Echlin and his publicist, Collette Kostyna.

Gareau and Kostyna’s investigation takes them to The Rail, a local magazine that has been plagued by strange events. One writer sets his apartment on fire. Miss Manners is photographed in compromising positions. And a pregnant columnist aborts her own fetus. Through a bizarre exploration of the occult, Gareau and Kostyna piece together an unusual solution.

Froese’s narrative is rife with paranoia and deceit, and hinges on the contradiction between reality and magic. Everyone is acting, telling half-truths, and harbouring secrets. The reader is always off-balance, trying to learn these secrets simmering beneath the surface. Froese uses fresh metaphors to evoke startling images. Insect imagery is abundant; beetles and preying mantises crawl over the narrative, adding to the eerie darkness. Froese also injects humour and dry wit through her casual conversational writing style. Ultimately, it is Froese’s portrayal of the women’s subtly budding relationship and trust that is truly beautiful. “What I mostly wonder about is how you turned out to be you,” Gareau says to Kostyna. Indeed, much of Froese’s mysterious puzzle lies in “solving” Gareau and Kostyna.

The murder mystery conclusion is ambivalent. However, these loose ends mimic reality instead of nicely tying together in the way that only fiction can. Some secrets will be kept and not all contradictions can be reconciled – that is part of the complex yet magical touch of the human self.

 

Reviewer: Prasanthi Vasanthakumar

Publisher: NeWest Press

DETAILS

Price: $22.95

Page Count: 300 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 1-896300-93-6

Released: Sept.

Issue Date: 2005-11

Categories: Fiction: Novels