Touched

Virginia Gillham is university librarian at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Touched is an admirably crafted, exceedingly disturbing first novel. In
a mere 165 pages, Jodi Lundgren explores with breathtaking insight the
impact of incestuous sexual abuse. At the beginning of the novel, the
main character, Jade King is presented as an exceptionally intelligent
and articulate, sexually aggressive 21-year-old university student. As
the plot unfolds, several threads are pulled together. At the same time
that we observe her brazen sexual pursuit of a married university
professor, we are drawn into the descent of the protagonist into a manic
manifestation of a bipolar disorder. Along the way, characterizations of
her parents emerge from vignettes scattered through the pages. The
flawed relationship of her father with his own mother is transparent
early in the novel, but the reader’s realization that Jade has been
the victim of incest—apparently long repressed—grows only gradually.
The description of a manic disorder, from inside the head of the victim,
is overwhelming. Her emergence, which is shaky at first but ultimately
satisfying as she takes control of her own life, is handled with great
skill.