The touch

the long version

The beautiful but physically ailing Donna, her emotionally remote live-in lover, Will, and her capable and caring sister, Gayle, are professionals in their thirties whose thoughts do not turn past their careers, their pleasures, their immediate needs. Into their lives comes the charismatic and unstable Frank Chapman, a fervid evangelist who claims to be able to work miracles. As the three get drawn into his web, they are forced to alter the way they look at the world - and each other. For Frank's touch, his haphazard intervention, whether benevolent or malign, will overturn all that they thought was fixed and secure. As in Sleepwalking, Julie Myerson has spun a gripping tale that takes place where suffering and pain shatter the mirror of commonplace reality, and a trace of the supernatural gleams through the shards. Trenchant, perceptive, coolly compassionate, this novel is another confident step in the career of a rising young talent.