Publisher's Synopsis
"The quiet plains of the North Country serve as a perfect backdrop for Parsons' moving debut, a collection of short stories whose characters often live deeply solitary, if not always lonely, lives."
--Kirkus Reviews - Best Books of 2014 (starred review)
"Eloquently written and replete with a continual stream of un-hackneyed twists and turns, Parsons' collection is superbly crafted. Engaging, riveting, and at times, mind-boggling, The Sense of Touch is earmarked to become a literary classic."
--San Francisco Book Review (five-star review)
Parsons has made himself a man to watch in the literary world. Each of these stories is as thrilling as the next.
--Portland Book Review (five-star review)
Ron Parsons' stellar debut collection is full of stories as changeable and unpredictable as a Midwestern springtime, as fresh and clear as a hidden waterfall, as sudden and perplexing as an unsolved murder. At once playful and deadly serious, hilarious and sad, these are the kinds of stories that will involve your own memory even as they show you a world you've likely never seen.
--Peter Geye, author of The Lighthouse Road and Wintering (winner of the Minnesota Book Award)
Ron Parsons in the sensitive sensual stories of The Sense of Touch explores the infinite spaces between the cold cold stars as well as the subatomic bosons and protons of timid touches, the uncertain certainty in Zeno's paradox of never connecting connections. These tales are the winsome hissing of busy signals lisping in the icy nicely nice neighborhoods of the missing Midwest at the intersection of polite delight and absolute zero at the bone.
--Michael Martone, author of Four for a Quarter and Michael Martone
Each story is honed with purpose and infused with subtle energies. He creates delicate lines between the frigid cosmos and the warmth that can be generated among people. Parsons' writing has a strong pulse. This debut assortment heralds his promising career.
-- The US Review of Books (Top-Rated Recommended Review)
Ron Parsons' characters, in his debut collection of short stories called The Sense of Touch, inhabit the North Country of the upper Midwest. We recognize them because they walk among us. ... [The] stories, rich with unexpected images and asides and the occasional absurdity, revolve around how they overcome, learn from or simply coexist with what they cannot seem to change.
--South Dakota Magazine
