Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on October 10, 2023
Walter Mosley has a laminated spot on my list of three favorite crime writers. When he strays from crime fiction, I’m less enthused about his novels. Touched is a horror novel. It’s based on a puzzling concept and isn’t nearly as compelling as his Easy Rawlins novels, but Mosley has mastered the art of holding a reader’s interest.
Martin Just is arrested for exposing himself, naked and erect, to a distant nine-year-old girl while he is standing on the second-floor deck of his home. His wife believes he was sleepwalking. Martin knows he was awake but isn’t sure how he came to be on the porch — or, for that matter, back on Earth.
Martin believes he is one of 107 people who were taken from Earth, trained for a millennium, and returned to change the Earth in 107 different ways. A pile of glowing blue rocks told him that mankind will reach a state of interstellar domination that will result in oblivion, ending all existence — not just on insignificant Earth, but throughout the entire universe. Martin woke up with that knowledge and with an erection. That’s a lot for Martin to process.
At least some of the 107 have made it their mission to wipe out humanity. Martin takes a different approach. Martin is the Cure. Or the Antibody. Sometimes he’s called the Antibody Cure. Martin wants to save the universe by fixing humanity rather than destroying it. This perspective puts him in conflict with the destroyers.
Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe Martin is delusional. But Martin believes that his newfound beliefs are true. The reader will agree with that conclusion before the novel reaches its midway point because the story is better if Martin is really waging a war against those of the 107 who want to end human life. Still, Martin’s explanation of his return to Earth and his newly split personality (he’s sharing his mind with a more toxic version of himself he calls Temple) never rises much above incoherent babble. In fact, the notion of choosing and training 107 humans to save the universe by fighting each other makes very little sense. At the very least, it needed further development.
Martin is Black. Before the battle with the destroyers begins, Martin needs to deal with the police, who decide to punish him for exposing himself on his deck. They place Martin in a cell with a large and brutal white supremacist who decides to strangle him. When Martin wakes up, he discovers that he is charged with murdering his cellmate. Fortunately, there were no witnesses and he likely acted in self-defense, so a judge releases him on bail. Mosley’s confidence in the judicial system is surprising, given that Mosley is far from naïve.
As Martin tries to explain all this to his wife, he realizes that he has physically changed. He feels younger. He’s stronger and more vigorous. Thanks to Temple, he’s become a sexual dynamo. That change pleases his wife (Martin feels a bit jealous that she loves shagging Temple) but she also seems to be changed by his touch. His wife takes steps to change his two children, making them soldiers in his war. This leads to a minor side story about his wife’s former (and possibly not so former) lover, but like most of the novel, that story is essentially thrown away before it develops into a significant subplot.
Mayhem ensues as Martin and his small army of reformed criminals (plus his family) battle a reincarnated killer, a demon dog, and a powerful member of the 107. That battle is essentially the heart of the novel, but it’s over too quickly to amount to much, given Temple’s ability as a warrior.
With no disrespect intended — again, I love Walter Mosley — the story seems a bit silly. Why did Mosley write it? I suppose Touched is a contemplation of death. Mosley’s point seems to be that death never defeats life. Everyone dies but in a universe that has existed for billions of years and will continue for billions more, the death of an individual life on a single planet isn’t all that significant. Death is “merely a prop for life, a yardstick that measured our advance.” It might be comforting to hold onto that thought until death prevents us from thinking. In any event, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the tiny specks we are in the vastness of space and time. A secondary lesson (and one familiar to fans of Mosley's work as a crime novelist) is that bullies can be defeated by showing them how “small and insignificant” they are.
Touched isn’t as substantial as Mosley’s crime fiction but it might appeal to horror fans who are satisfied with a bare-bones story. I recommend it to that limited audience with the caveat that readers looking for Mosley at his best are likely to be disappointed.
RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS