Touch
2013 Longlist

Touch

ABOUT
THE BOOK

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 after the mythic summer his grandfather returned to the town in search of his beloved but long-dead wife. And like his grandfather, Stephen is forced to confront the losses of his past.

Touch introduces you to a world where monsters and witches oppose singing dogs and golden caribou, where the living and the dead part and meet again in the crippling beauty of winter and the surreal haze of summer.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Alexi
Zentner

Alexi Zentner’s fiction has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Narrative Magazine, Tin House, Slice Magazine, Orion Magazine and other publications. His short story Touch was featured in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 where it was chosen by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as a jury favourite. Touch and The Adjuster were also selected for “special mention” in the 2008 Pushcart Prize anthology. Alexi Zentner was born in Kitchener, Ontario, and currently lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife and two daughters.

Alexi Zentner’s fiction has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Narrative Magazine, Tin House, Slice Magazine, Orion Magazine and other publications. His short story Touch was featured in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008 where it was chosen by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as a jury favourite. Touch and The Adjuster were also selected for “special mention” in the 2008 Pushcart Prize anthology. Alexi Zentner was born in Kitchener, Ontario, and currently lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife and two daughters.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

Leaping across generations, an Anglican priest returns home to be flooded by memories and tall tales, where tragedy tears families a part and monsters inhabit the Canadian wilderness.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
04/04/2011
Author
Publisher
W. W. Norton

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