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Mister Touch
After a mutant offshoot of AIDS virtually destroys human life across the United States, a multi-racial group of ravaged survivors in lower Manhattan joins forces to face the grave new world that awaits them. Reprint.
502 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
2 people are currently reading
121 people want to read
About the author
Malcolm Bosse
34 books10 followersMalcolm Joseph Bosse (May 6, 1926 – May 3, 2002) was an American author of both young adult and adult novels. His novels are often set in Asia, and have been praised for their cultural and historical information relating to the character's adventures. Bosse mostly wrote historical fiction novels after the publication of The Warlord, a historical fiction work set in 1920's China, which became a best-seller.
He also won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1983.
Bosse was born in Detroit, Michigan and died in New York City. He was a graduate of Yale University and served in the U.S. Navy. Bosse was also an English teacher in City College of New York in Manhattan.
He also won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1983.
Bosse was born in Detroit, Michigan and died in New York City. He was a graduate of Yale University and served in the U.S. Navy. Bosse was also an English teacher in City College of New York in Manhattan.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 16, 2014
The Basics
A virus has hit the world and greatly diminished its population. Those that are left range between levels of blindness and being unable to breathe, but one group in particular has banded together with the intention of surviving. The Skulls, full of crazy nicknames and with strict rules about never speaking of the past. Their leader, Mister Touch, wants them to make a journey from New York to Arizona, but with a laundry list of disabilities and trauma, can they hope to make it?
My Thoughts
This is probably the most hopeful apocalypse you’ll ever have the good fortune to read. The world is not in good shape, for sure. Most of the survivors are now disabled in some way. Most of them didn’t really have much to offer the world before a virus destroyed it, much less after. Yet this book is all about people finding where they belong, surviving against the odds, moving forward and refusing to inhabit the past, and overcoming adversity. There is darkness to be found here and villains, because there is no such thing as a good story without conflict, but there’s a spirit of hope that suffuses this book and glows from it all the same.
It’s easy to make comparisons between Mister Touch and The Stand by Stephen King. Rest assured that both have a lot to offer, different and similar things, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mister Touch stands on its own. It’s not particularly supernatural, not at all, so don’t approach it waiting for a Randall Flagg or Mother Abigail to show up. What it offers is a more realistic approach, humanistic in the same way as The Stand, but unique.
The cast of characters was huge, and there was an appendix that named them all with a blurb about their story, but I found I didn’t need it. Bosse managed to make each of them so themselves and smoothly reminded us within the text of their importance. There was never any confusion on my part, and the fact that he did juggle all those people so well deserves some applause.
I thought this book was wonderful. I’m sure I’m making that plain. It was raw and yet touching, hopeful but not saccharine. I was moved, but I never felt manipulated into being moved. That’s a rare thing, and this book is so ignored and forgotten that I urge anyone reading this review to track down a copy and give it a shot.
Final Rating
5/5
A virus has hit the world and greatly diminished its population. Those that are left range between levels of blindness and being unable to breathe, but one group in particular has banded together with the intention of surviving. The Skulls, full of crazy nicknames and with strict rules about never speaking of the past. Their leader, Mister Touch, wants them to make a journey from New York to Arizona, but with a laundry list of disabilities and trauma, can they hope to make it?
My Thoughts
This is probably the most hopeful apocalypse you’ll ever have the good fortune to read. The world is not in good shape, for sure. Most of the survivors are now disabled in some way. Most of them didn’t really have much to offer the world before a virus destroyed it, much less after. Yet this book is all about people finding where they belong, surviving against the odds, moving forward and refusing to inhabit the past, and overcoming adversity. There is darkness to be found here and villains, because there is no such thing as a good story without conflict, but there’s a spirit of hope that suffuses this book and glows from it all the same.
It’s easy to make comparisons between Mister Touch and The Stand by Stephen King. Rest assured that both have a lot to offer, different and similar things, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mister Touch stands on its own. It’s not particularly supernatural, not at all, so don’t approach it waiting for a Randall Flagg or Mother Abigail to show up. What it offers is a more realistic approach, humanistic in the same way as The Stand, but unique.
The cast of characters was huge, and there was an appendix that named them all with a blurb about their story, but I found I didn’t need it. Bosse managed to make each of them so themselves and smoothly reminded us within the text of their importance. There was never any confusion on my part, and the fact that he did juggle all those people so well deserves some applause.
I thought this book was wonderful. I’m sure I’m making that plain. It was raw and yet touching, hopeful but not saccharine. I was moved, but I never felt manipulated into being moved. That’s a rare thing, and this book is so ignored and forgotten that I urge anyone reading this review to track down a copy and give it a shot.
Final Rating
5/5
May 9, 2010
My #1 re-read. Probably read this 20 times. It is the best post-pandemic road trip book ever. Better than the Stand (imho).
May 28, 2014
As I mentioned in a status update this was a reread of a book some friends and I read after finding it in a thrift shop when it was only a few years old.
It wasn't as OMG AMAZING as I remember thinking it was then. I've read probably thousands of books in the interim, and have gained 20 more years of life experience.
That being said it is a solid, engaging little book. It's the sort of story that really sticks to you. It's an incredibly realistic post apoc scenario. The characters are incredibly human, which makes them flawed and relatable.
A veryveryvery silly complaint I had, though, is something that I didn't even notice on first read. At that time I was living in central California and had never been in the Mojave desert any time other than mid summer. I have now lived in Southern Nevada for a decade.
Near the end of the book when they reach northern-central Arizona, it is around 100 degrees F, IN DECEMBER (please note this is a disease caused post apoc setting, not disaster or nuclear). This irks me in the same way that it irks me when TV/Movies show sand dune filled SAHARA desert scenes when they're ostensibly in Nevada/Arizona.
While this book was written pre-Google era, it was still very simple to just look up average temperatures in any given area per time of year.
This book did basically everything else really well. It's just incredibly lazy of authors to not perform simple bits of research like that.
It wasn't as OMG AMAZING as I remember thinking it was then. I've read probably thousands of books in the interim, and have gained 20 more years of life experience.
That being said it is a solid, engaging little book. It's the sort of story that really sticks to you. It's an incredibly realistic post apoc scenario. The characters are incredibly human, which makes them flawed and relatable.
A veryveryvery silly complaint I had, though, is something that I didn't even notice on first read. At that time I was living in central California and had never been in the Mojave desert any time other than mid summer. I have now lived in Southern Nevada for a decade.
Near the end of the book when they reach northern-central Arizona, it is around 100 degrees F, IN DECEMBER (please note this is a disease caused post apoc setting, not disaster or nuclear). This irks me in the same way that it irks me when TV/Movies show sand dune filled SAHARA desert scenes when they're ostensibly in Nevada/Arizona.
While this book was written pre-Google era, it was still very simple to just look up average temperatures in any given area per time of year.
This book did basically everything else really well. It's just incredibly lazy of authors to not perform simple bits of research like that.
April 3, 2022
Could have easily been titled, "Mister Touch and Spirit bang in every city they go through"
January 19, 2025
I own this book in Dutch for years and reread this multiple times. One of the best books about surviving after a virus wiped out most humans and left the rest of them to try to survive the aftermath and kept there humanity. Good read about the problems they face and an journey across countries to an new place to live
March 23, 2024
Gelezen in het Nederlands, ik vind het een geweldig goed boek. De manier waarop de gevolgen van de ziekte worden beschreven en hoe de mensen erna proberen te overleven, het goede en het slechte in een mens.
June 20, 2017
ARC copy - Advanced Uncorrected Proof.
Probable publication date listed as April 1991.
Probable publication date listed as April 1991.
October 16, 2024
Took me a little too long to get into the story, but was engaging afterwards. Bonus points for sharing a name with the author.
October 3, 2014
A group of survivors of a pandemic band together in New York city for mutual protection and company. Most have some combination of poor eyesight and difficult breathing, which are after-effects of the disease. The characters are unusual for this sort of story and come from a variety of backgrounds, but there are so many that it's difficult to keep track. There is a list of characters at the back of the book, but the descriptions contain spoilers so I didn't want to read it until the end of the story (which defeats the object really). A lot of them are well described, but they are mostly memorable only because they fall into stereotypes.
The first third of the book mainly describes the various characters and what it's like to live in New York after the pandemic. I found this dragged on a bit, but things got a bit more interesting when the gang decides to leave and go on a journey across America. I'm not giving much away here as there's a map at the beginning of the book and it says as much in the blurb on the back, but I won't spoil the details of what happens.
Not a bad book, but I felt it was a bit long and some things got a bit repetitive. I would recommend this for fans of apocalyptic fiction as something a bit different, but it's not a classic.
The first third of the book mainly describes the various characters and what it's like to live in New York after the pandemic. I found this dragged on a bit, but things got a bit more interesting when the gang decides to leave and go on a journey across America. I'm not giving much away here as there's a map at the beginning of the book and it says as much in the blurb on the back, but I won't spoil the details of what happens.
Not a bad book, but I felt it was a bit long and some things got a bit repetitive. I would recommend this for fans of apocalyptic fiction as something a bit different, but it's not a classic.
December 18, 2012
Set two years after a genetically-programmed virus has wiped out most humans. Starts in NYC, but follows the 200 or so survivors who banded together into a functional society there to Arizona where the air is clean. After-effects of the virus cause blindness and phlegm-filled lungs, and the symptoms are progressive, so people continue to die for a long period of time. The story is really good--about how societies develop out of arcane but necessary rules and quick decision-making, but with very different individuals who may, and usually will, think the leader is wrong.
August 17, 2013
If I had rated this book just after finishing it, I would probably have given it 2 or 3 stars. I don't remember whether it was exceptionally written; I remember being so affronted by the coarseness of the tale, and how it was presented. It was so raw, so ugly -- painful even. Entirely ungilded. I don't like reading things like that. I don't need rainbows and ponies, but I don't need my face rubbed into harsh reality either. But I'm now 15 years or so out, and I often think of this story. It stays with you.
October 28, 2009
Science fiction- not my usual genre but enjoyed.
Want to read
March 4, 2015Listed as Q3 = A good story with some faults, P3 = A booktalk on this title will excite most people’s interest
August 21, 2016
did not finish
got tied of people dying of stupidity.
got tied of people dying of stupidity.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews