Now Is Not the Time to Panic: A Novel

I enjoyed this novel though it did not quite work. The story begins in 2017, the principal events occur twenty years earlier in small town Tennessee. The narrator, Frankie, was then an awkward teenager, into whose life comes a soul-mate Zeke. The long summer vacation deepens their friendship. They create what could be seen either as a radical art project or a prank. The consequences ripple out far beyond the humdrum town of Coalfield and make national headlines. The original desire to be anonymous becomes necessary as the affair spirals into one of the big mysteries of 1996. And is then forgotten – until a reporter unearths the truth and tracks down Frankie, now mid-30s and married with a child. What will happen now to Frankie and Zeke? The young Frankie was relatable. The reader warms to her desire to make a mark on the world, to be something other than the too ordinary girl, overlooked at home, in school and in her community. This is standard fare in coming-of-age tales in book and film, but it is well done. With the later Frankie the emotional drive of the novel starts to wobble. The dreams of youth have become the what-might-have-beens of middle age, which is simply disappointing. To be honest, the story meanders along, fizzles a bit and then just goes out. I felt Kevin Wilson was trying to say something significant but has not pulled it off. Frankie-and-Zeke’s urban guerrilla art deserved something better.

This short, coming-of-age book by Kevin Wilson begins with an imaginative and snappy plot…but then just starts to draaaaaaag out until it finally sputters to a disappointing ending. It's the summer of 1996. Frankie and Zeke are two 16-year-olds living in Coalfield, a rural, out-of-the-way town in Tennessee. Frankie lives with her mom and older (wild, uncontrollable, almost feral) triplet brothers; her dad left her mom after he got his secretary pregnant. Zeke, who is from Memphis, is living with his mom in his grandmother's house just for the summer after his dad had multiple affairs. Both are lonely and insecure, and neither Frankie nor Zeke has ever had a best friend, so when they find each other, life is better. And more fun. Frankie is a budding author, while Zeke is an artist. Out of sheer boredom they jointly create a poster. Frankie writes the bizarre saying: "The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us." Zeke creates an equally bizarre drawing to accompany it. They make hundreds of copies and post it all over town. Then they wait to see what happens. They tell no one it is their creation. But both are shocked and horrified at the viral reaction that causes a wild chain of events—some deadly—that can be traced back to the poster in what becomes known as the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Fast forward to 2017, and Frankie, now a successful novelist who is happily married with a daughter, gets a phone call from a reporter who has figured out that she is behind it all. Will this deep, dark secret that she and Zeke have kept for more than 20 years upend her perfect life? There are several problems with this book. Most important, the story is told exclusively in Frankie's voice, and I think that is what makes it drag. The novel would have been greatly enriched if we could have heard something from Zeke's point of view and possibly something from the point of view of a Coalfield resident caught up in the "panic." In addition, I feel like author Kevin Wilson is trying to offer profound insight and philosophical contemplations about everything from teen love to family dysfunction to the power of art circa the 1990s, but much of that falls flat—just like the second half of the book. This is a fun, albeit odd, little book for a quick summer read but even at a scant 250 pages the story seems to stall about midway through until it sputters to a most disappointing ending.