About the book…
Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure service workers, are not particularly happy together–but they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia’s entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and New Age mantra they know by heart.
Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beach-side paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, Remy and Alicia tumble into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?
Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, ‘A Touch Of Jen’ is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.
Oh my god.
For filing under ‘what the hell did I just read?’ and ‘I need to talk about this IMMEDIATELY but know no one in my life will have read it goddammit!’
Throwing myself at the mercy of the readers of this blog to let me know if you have, or if you are planning to read ‘A Touch Of Jen’ , it is a warped, mind fuck of a book which left this humble reader reeling.
The narrative is told from the perspective of Remy (he changed his name to make him sound more interesting…didn’t work) and Alicia, both of whom met and began a relationship whilst in other relationships.
Both idolise/copy/obsess over former co-worker Jen, following her Instagram account, buying her jewellery and copying her ‘aesthetic’ including role playing her in their sex life.
Their obsession is seen from both Remy and Alicia’s angles, who are both authentically fraudulent in who and what they are, and wish to be.
In their mutually obsessive state they find themselves invited into Jen’s real life world where, firstly, they simply cannot compete with the insane level of viciousness that Jen and her clique engage in, daily, and discover a whole new level of fake living.
The obsession/compulsion becomes a haunting unlike any you have ever read, embracing gore, body horror and transcendental violence the likes of which I have never come across.
This is not to say it is violence for violence sake, the juxtaposition of the beauty aesthetic and what is perceived to be beautiful and successful, is so neatly underpinned by physical reality and the tiny details which we notice about each other once we are in a committed relationship.
Beth creates this monstrous menage a trois, where like and loath are mutually exclusive emotions and writes so sharply, so wittily, you find yourself gasping and chuckling at the same time as events become calamitous and deadly.
There is a deep and abiding sense of sadness as events spiral beyond anyone’s reasonable control to embrace an otherworldly, almost Lovecraftian horror, again showing the way that reality, and unreality clash and become a third place altogether, a liminal space where anything can, and does happen.
I found myself tremendously moved, grossed out, perplexed and engaged from first page to last and hope that maybe one of you out there may pick it up , please, It’s fantastic in all meanings of the word.
And if you do, please let me know as I really need to talk to someone about it….
About the author…
Beth Morgan is the author of A Touch of Jen, published by Little, Brown. Her writing has appeared in the Kenyon Review Online and the Iowa Review. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Links-https://msha.ke/methborgan/
Twitter @methborgan @littlebrown
Author
bridgeman.lenny@gmail.com