Touch: A Novel

by Olaf Olafsson Narrated by Peter Noble

Overview

The inspiration for a film directed, written and produced by Baltasar Kormákur, co-written by Olaf Olafsson.

""Delicate, absorbing...as satisfying as it is moving."" - Vogue

A mesmerizing, panoramic story of one man's search to find a lover who suddenly disappeared decades before

When the pandemic hits, Kristofer is forced to shutter his successful restaurant in Reykjavik, sending him into a spiral of uncertainty, even as his memory seems to be failing. But an uncanny bolt from the blue-a message from Miko Nakamura, a woman whom he'd known in the sixties when they were students in London-both inspires and rattles him, as he is drawn inexorably back into a love story that has marked him for life. Even as the pandemic upends his world, Kristofer finds himself pulled toward an answer to the mystery of Miko's sudden departure decades before, compelling him to travel to London and Japan as the virus threatens to shut everything down.

A heart-wrenching love story and an absorbing mystery, Touch delves into the secrets of the past to explore the hidden lives that we all possess, the pain and beauty of our past loves and friendships that continue to leave their mark on us. Searching and lyrically rendered by acclaimed author Olaf Olafsson, Touch is a stunning tribute to the weight of history and the complexities of the human heart.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

Narrator Peter Noble brings both gravitas and humanity to this unusual love story. Miko and Kristofer were in love 50 years ago, when they were young. Then Miko and her father departed suddenly, leaving Kristofer confused and devastated. A 2020 Facebook message from Miko makes the 74-year-old Kristofer turn his back on everything in Iceland to fly to Japan to see her. Noble makes Kristofer a completely believable ordinary man who is dealing with the onset of the Covid pandemic, pondering his life, and, prompted by Miko's message, remembering his youth. When they meet again, Miko unravels the mystery of their departure, recounting horrific images of Hiroshima and the brutal effects of radiation on survivors. Noble’s understated, truthful performance offers a memorable listen. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

06/27/2022

Olafsson (The Sacrament) imagines how two people confronting the pandemic reconsider their futures in Reykjavik and Japan. After increasing lockdown restrictions, widower Kristófer Hannesson, 74, shutters his restaurant. Then he receives a friend request on Facebook from Miko Nakamura, the one who got away in the late 1960s. Miko had been hospitalized with Covid, and without telling her, Kristófer buys a plane ticket to Japan to see her. While waylaid in London by canceled flights, Kristófer decides “to confront a few things avoided thinking about.” He recalls his youth in the city when he dropped out of the London School of Economics and started working at Miko’s father’s Japanese restaurant, where he fell in love with Miko. He also wrestles with his more recent past in Iceland, including misunderstandings with his stepdaughter, how he’s blamed others for his choices, and having to accept his true feelings for his late wife. A languid tone belies the horrifying secret about why Miko and her father suddenly disappeared 50 years earlier, but the gratifying ending is hopeful. It adds up to an affecting story about the sway one’s past can hold on the present. Agent: Gloria Loomis. Watkins/Loomis Agency. (Aug.)

From the Publisher

The gratifying ending is hopeful. [Touch] adds up to an affecting story about the sway one’s past can hold on the present.” — Publishers Weekly

"Olafsson’s treatment of the vast cultural chasm between Icelander Kristófer, and Miko...brings suspense and heartache to the reader." — Library Journal

"Delicate, absorbing...Touch is weighted with questions about love, memory, and intergenerational trauma—reaching a denouement as satisfying as it is moving." — Vogue

"Olafsson is writing at the top of his game here — any reader with a taste for novels that gently explore the internal world will find much to love in this remarkable book." — Minneapolis Star Tribune

Library Journal

07/01/2022

In renowned Icelandic author Olafsson's first novel written in English, 74-year-old restaurateur Kristófer, a widower struggling with some cognitive issues, decides to close his popular restaurant as COVID begins ripping through Iceland. At the same time, he is stunned to receive a Facebook friend request from Miko, the love of his life for a few months in 1969. In her posting, Miko tells him that she is seriously ill with the virus. Back in the 1960s, Kristófer had quit the London School of Economics and had gone to work for Miko's father in his small but popular Japanese restaurant. Now, with the travel ban between Iceland and Japan looming, Kristófer flies to Tokyo to find Miko and resolve the disastrous ending of their love affair. Layer by layer, Olafsson (The Sacrament) fleshes out their beautiful, doomed story, which is tied to the lasting effects of Hiroshima. Kristófer's quest has the triple-threat urgency of his memory challenges, the suffocating complications of COVID protocols, and the drive to answer the mystery of Miko's sudden disappearance from his life, which nearly crushed him. VERDICT Olafsson's treatment of the vast cultural chasm between Icelander Kristófer, and Miko, shaped by the bombing of Hiroshima shortly before she was born, brings suspense and heartache to the reader.—Beth E. Andersen

SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

Narrator Peter Noble brings both gravitas and humanity to this unusual love story. Miko and Kristofer were in love 50 years ago, when they were young. Then Miko and her father departed suddenly, leaving Kristofer confused and devastated. A 2020 Facebook message from Miko makes the 74-year-old Kristofer turn his back on everything in Iceland to fly to Japan to see her. Noble makes Kristofer a completely believable ordinary man who is dealing with the onset of the Covid pandemic, pondering his life, and, prompted by Miko's message, remembering his youth. When they meet again, Miko unravels the mystery of their departure, recounting horrific images of Hiroshima and the brutal effects of radiation on survivors. Noble’s understated, truthful performance offers a memorable listen. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2022-06-22
A pandemic novel reunites an Icelandic man and a Japanese woman who had lost contact for a half-century after a brief but significant romance.

There is a lot going on in the mind of 75-year-old Kristófer, which is where most of this novel takes place. He has decided to close his successful restaurant, with Covid intensifying and no end to the lockdown in sight. He's lost his wife to an unspecified illness, and tension remains with his stepdaughter. A friend with whom he had been to school in London has just died. His brother both depends on him and nags him. And his doctor has ordered a brain scan, suspecting some cognitive issues. He tends to avoid what he would rather not confront and isn’t much for acknowledging his feelings, even to himself. As the first-person narrator, he is not the most reliable. Out of the blue he receives a Facebook message from Miko, the Japanese woman with whom he had fallen in love in London 50 years ago and who changed the course of his life before leaving him after a few months with no explanation or warning. Now she has the virus and is not sure she will survive it. In a novel that is a little too reliant on coincidence—that the death of Kristófer's friend from London and the reconnection with his girlfriend from London should happen concurrently—Kristófer decides without telling Miko that he will go see her in Japan, a journey that requires a stopover in London. It is there that he revisits his memories and recounts how he had forsaken his education, changed his life and his values during the radical late 1960s, and found his path forward after working at a restaurant with Miko that was owned by her father. They had identified with John and Yoko and explored the darker undercurrents of Hiroshima. Then she had left England, with her father, leaving no forwarding address. Why had she left? Why has she contacted him now? Will they have a future after 50 years apart?

A ruminative novel that's propelled by the narrator's psychological reflections.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176448108
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/16/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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