Hey, it's NPR's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. You ever do that thing where you're

looking at the socials of an ex or an old flame or even just like an unrecipricated one-way

crush from back in the day? And then your brain just starts to entertain the big questions of,

oh, what if or what happened, you know, that sort of thing.

That distant longing is at the core of today's book, titled Touch by Olaf Olofson.

It's about a guy, Christopher, whose long-ago lover, Miko hits him up.

See, Miko's dad just disappeared, and so, of course, they've got to figure out what happened.

And that's only one of the mysteries of the book.

The other being those big questions I was talking about before, the what happened of it all?

And Oloffson talks to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about how when you're thinking of the past like that, it's easy to get lost in the fog of memory.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods, NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of

real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

In a person's life, is there always the one that got away?

The person, maybe persons, about whom you wonder, what if?

Well, Olaf Olifson's new novel takes that question to a new level.

His protagonist, Christopher, is an Icelandic man in his 70s who has spent the last 50 years looking for and longing for a woman he loved in his 20s.

The book is titled Touch. Olaf Olifson is with me now. Welcome.

Thank you.

Start at the beginning, by which I mean not where your novel starts, which is present day or nearly.

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