Robin Grant is a lost soul, he once loved a girl, but she married someone else. And Robin became a university hermit, a perpetual graduate student. A scientific career is not in sight for him, and the real world seems to be a center of melancholy and ugliness. But Robin has an outlet - the stories he writes are funny and dark, strange, like himself. Robin is looking for love, but when she is in front of him, he passes by - either not noticing, or rejecting. Actually, Robin doesn’t know if he needs love, or will her touch be enough? And life, as if trying to deepen his doubts, shows him the surreal underside of love, painted in dark and absurd tones. What is love? Fleeting happiness, great luck or weakness that only losers need? Jonathan Coe tells a strange story that links together the events in Robin's life with his stories, the ending of which may seem comical to some, and hopelessly tragic to others, but everyone will definitely feel an amazing mood, which permeates the book: melancholic, anxious and crafty. “A Touch of Love” is the second novel by D. Coe, the author of “The House of Sleep” and “The Random Woman,” after which Coe was talked about as one of the most serious and original writers of our time. Like all of Coe's books, A Touch of Love is not just out-of-touch entertainment, but rather a reflection of our strange world.