The Touch
Author: F. Paul Wilson
Released: 1986
As a stand alone book in F. Paul Wilson’s Adversary Cycle, The Touch barely ties into the events of the Repairman Jack world or even the rest of the Adversary Cycle stories, but was overall one of my favorite books I’ve read by the author. The book is the story of Dr. Alan Bulmer, a family physician who gains the ability of the Dat-tay-vao, a healing touch that works for about an hour a day. Patients who come in with hearing loss or broken bones leave Bulmer’s office completely healthy. The ability seems to know no limits, fixing life long birth defects or nearly fatal cancer. The ability draws Bulmer into the intrigue of an ambitious senator, as well as the attention of other local medical professionals, all of which believe Bulmer is either having a breakdown or is now a scam artist. The only man who seems to have any idea what is going in is the Vietnamese gardener for the local widow, a man with a set of skills reminiscent of Liam Neeson in Taken.
While Wilson can craft great page turners, nobody will ever confuse him for John Steinbeck. Wilson often falls back on cliched character types and racial stereotypes throughout his writing, and The Touch is no exception. The bad guys are foreshadowed early and there is no guessing when it comes to who Alan should trust. Despite all that, the story moves at a brisk pace and I frequently found myself wondering how I would respond in the same situation. The progression of the touch on Bulmer is obvious to the reader immediately, but it is understandable how Bulmer could ignore or overlook the negative effects (or diagnose them as stress) for as long as he does.
Much of the suspense of the book hinges on whether Bulmer’s ability would work on a person with autism, which was sort of odd to distinguish among all the conditions a patient could have. Wilson wisely focuses much of the doubt as coming from a character worrying about the possible effects on her son. With a simple story and few major characters, this is the type of book that lends itself to thinking of cinematically while reading. (For my reading, I pictured Harrison Ford as Bulmer and Catherine Zeta-Jones as the widow (when they were in their 40’s), Naomi Watts as Bulmer’s wife and Richard Jenkins as the Senator.)
My book also included the short story, Dat-tay-vao which explains how the ability crossed the ocean from Vietnam to America. The story features some very unlikable characters in a tense Vietnam setting, while filling in a blank that I wasn’t particularly interested in knowing about. Still, who can complain about a free bonus story.
- 5 Barrels
- Repairman Jack
