Customer Reviews

Touchwood

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I read Touchwood and Watermark in reverse order. Watermark, Kallmaker's ninth novel, is writing of a very high level and it is really interesting to see the seeds of Kallmaker's talent in Touchwood, which I believe is her second book.

Touchwood is far more romance novel than Watermark, but it is far from simple. Sure we could have had the easy story of Rayann falling for a woman old enough to be her mother. May-December romance stories are almost cliche. But Kallmaker doesn't stop there.

Even though Touchwood is solely from Rayann's 29-year old point-of-view, we see Louisa's 56-year old character clearly. Louisa has done much in her life, survived the death of a partner, remained closeted for the benefit of her son. She was butch when mothers were supposed to be femme. When Louisa realizes she is falling in love with Rayann she holds herself back, feeling that she has no right to take the best years of Rayann's life, not when she's already had her share of love. In short, she doesn't deserve the love of a younger woman.

I was rooting as much for Louisa as I was for Rayann. Louisa had bought into the idea that an older woman just isn't worth as much as a younger one. Rayann changes that. Rayann does resist the love and has a passionate, but light-hearted, affair with Zoraida. Her own mother is not happy about Louisa and Rayann's affair when she discovers it, but soon realizes that she prefers Louisa to any of her daughter's previous lovers. Louisa respects her daughter, for starters. In the end, everyone just has to grow up.

Best of all, and erotically portrayed, is Rayann's discovery that for all her sex-positive youth she can hardly keep up with Louisa in bed.

When I finished Touchwood, having already read Watermark, I was uplifted. Touchwood gave me all the nuance of two women deeply in love and Watermark all the depth of character that made me want to give the books to straight people in my family to say "Our lives are just like yours, we love, we grieve, we survive." The two books together provide a range of expression and experience that I've yet to find in any other so-called "romance" novels.

I just finished reading this book and so much of it will be edged in my mind for a long time. It's a little longer than most Naiad Press books and every page made me fall in love with both these women. I wanted to be Rayann, young and ready to love with all my heart. I wanted to be Louisa, much older yet able to teach the younger woman about unexpected passion -- and receive some surprises herself. I wanted to find their bookstore and meet all the customers. I read this book because a friend absolutely refused to lend me her copy, saying she re-reads it too often to risk being without it. Now I understand why. It really touched me. I can tell that this is probably the author's earlier work because there were a few rough spots, but they were so easy to forgive with such exquisitely drawn characters and passionately detailed eroticism.

I read this novel quite a few years back and read it again
just recently. Karin never disappoints even the second time
around.

Katie P. Moore
Author Southern Heart

It is ironic that Touchwood, published in 1991 and presaging Karin Kallmaker's vast range in her so-called "formula" romances, is still as needed today as it was 15 years ago.

The whole underlying point of the novel, aside from a sexy, entertaining tale of a young woman's search for romance, is that young woman's - and the reader's - coming to understand what life was like for those lesbians who came before her. She is falling in love with one of those pioneers, a lesbian who survived the closets, stereotypes and vicious social stigmas of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Rayann, a creature of the gay 90s where it was possible to have - and want! -- nothing but lesbian friends, and hang out only in lesbian places, just doesn't "get" why Louisa, her senior by 26 years, was ever in the closet. Doesn't "get" Louisa's stomping butch best friend, Danny, who was butch and not gonna hide it even during times when not wearing 3 items of women's clothing could get you arrested. Rayann doesn't "get" why Louisa would pretend to be femme for her lesbian social circle, because that is what her social circle demanded of her, since she was a mother.

In one wonderful, telling exchange, Rayann even asks Louisa how she could stand living that way. Louisa's reply is forthright: she was as safe and out as she could possibly be, living under those strictures with a young chlid, living an unheard of dream of a shared life with her first long-term love, helped by friends she loved and needed. There was nothing to "stand." She was *happy* in a world determined not to let her even exist.

So today, 15 years after this novel was penned, we have a reader who doesn't "get" how Rayann could be attracted to Louisa as anything but a mother figure. Doesn't "get" the metaphors about how stereotypes both within and outside the community have shaped our identity. Doesn't even "get" how 15 years ago Rayann was happily surrounded with her lesbian world, like that's a bad thing! Rayann's immersion into the out and proud gay 90s is what keeps Rayann from seeing that not everybody gets to live that way, challenging her to find empathy.

More ironically, this reader doesn't "get" that Louisa's absent voice in this novel is a reflection of how society renders women over 50 sexless and voiceless. As Rayann learns Louisa's history, she sees Louisa more and more clearly. And we the readers can follow that same journey of learning and exploration. Unless, of course, a reader just doesn't "get" it.

Unfortunately, that reader didn't stick around for the payoff, the delightful turn of events when Rayann discovers that she can barely keep up with Louisa in bed, and comes to realize that Louisa is, simply, a Woman of Quality. Vital, sexual, intelligent, committed, loyal - Louisa is a catch-and-a-half for the vastly less experienced Rayann, not the other way around.

Rayann's subsequent feelings of inferiority become another interesting theme in the book, and in short stories written after the close of this novel, and its heart-breaking, soaring sequel Watermark, it is plain that Louisa deepened and enriched Rayann's life and character immeasurably. (I do advise anyone who reads and loves Touchwood to let some time pass before reading Watermark. It's devastating at times, and at others, funny and romantic in different ways.)

When I first read Touchwood I identified with Rayann. My copy was growing tattered and so I was pleased to acquire a new copy with a beautiful new cover when it was reissued. I laughed all over again in the scene when Rayann, mending her broken heart early on, seems to find herself noticing every single woman she sees. I have been there in my life, when the light on a stocking-clad leg or a bare shoulder stopped me in my tracks with appreciation for how beautiful all women can be.

In my recent re-reading, all these years later, I identified with Louisa's silent strength and her attempt to resist her love for Rayann, believing that as a woman of 56, she did not deserve the love of the much younger woman. That is a *lot* to get from a so-called formula romance, that spoke to me all those years ago and speaks to me again, even though I and society have changed.

This was and IS a phenomonal book about age, society and ageism, from a writer then only 31 herself. It's also an entertaining, humorous romance with a wonderful, uplifting ending. 5 stars seems inadequate, but it's the most I can give!

...reading lesbian romances. It's still my favorite and I still wish that I could meet Louisa fo rreal.

This book left me wanting more...and such a delight, there is more. The story left me breathless, and I read feverishly to find out what would happen. I have yet to read Watermark (sequel) but if it's only half as good as the first one, I won't be dissapointed.

I just finished this book. I loved it. I couldn't put it down. Rayanne takes you through all of her emotions. You feel like you are right there with her. I would have to say this is one of the best stories I have ever read. It gave me goose bumps. I would definately recomend it to anyone who likes a good romance.

Is there room in the genre of lesbian romance for a May-December story? Yowza, this is it! It was much more complex than I expected, more than December not feeling worthy, but May feeling inadequate next to December's experienced life. I really wanted to meet these women. Issues of the closet, butch-femme and emotional risk are throughly explored. And the eroticism ... wow!

This book was honest and unsparing about ageism and many other issues, including the spiritual cost of being closeted. Unepxected for a "romance." I then read the sequel and was amazed. What a one-two punch, and how approrpiate it was to our lives.

The text from the back cover is not currently available on this page, so I'm adding it first below.

BACK COVER TEXT
Twenty-nine-year-old Rayann Germaine, betrayed by her lover, flees in grief and rage. She meets rare book store owner Louisa Thatcher, a woman many years her senion, who offers shelter and work... and soon, passion, and a loving place in her life.

But Rayann encounters challenges to this new love-- from friends who question its wisdom, from her mother who disapproves of this liaison with a woman her own contemporary, from Louisa's son who learns for the first time his mother's true sexuality.

And there are profound differences between Rayann and Louisa themselves, two women who come from dramatically different places in the spectrum of age and life experience.

Setting her story in today's ever-changing environs fo California's Bay Area, Karin Kallmaker brings her talent to full flower in this entertaining, erotic, thought-provoking exploration of love, and of that landscape of the mind known as age.
END OF BACK COVER TEXT

Karin Kallmaker is one of my favorite authors in this genre. She never fails to deliver a great story, albeit a story that is almost always pure formula. 'Touchwood' is equally as good as her other works, but it seems to stray from that formula just a little bit. This provides a refreshing new aspect this reader wasn't expecting.

The biggest hurdle for the reader seems to be acceptance of the age issue between the two main characters, Rayann and Louisa. Rayann is 27. Louisa is twice that and has a son older than Rayann. I like older women, but had a hard time getting over the huge age difference. Therefore, I cheated and pictured Rayann about 15 years older, shrinking the age difference to 12 years. This tactic didn't take away from the story and made it much easier for me to enjoy. This was the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5.

'Touchwood' is a must own book and a great addition to any bookshelf.