Continuing to wade uncertainly into contemporary fiction, I’m happy to report I quite enjoyed Kevin Wilson’s 2022 novel, Now is Not the Time to Panic. Hat tip to my friend Cody for the recommendation.

In the story, two lonely teenagers in 1990s Tennessee create an enigmatic art poster that goes viral and sparks a town-wide panic with dangerous consequences, and twenty years later, the now-successful author (and narrator) Frankie must confront her buried secret when a journalist investigates the infamous incident.

Takeaways:

• Wilson (a male) makes a bold choice using a female narrator. Perhaps female readers can better attest to how “authentic” his representation of a teenage girl’s consciousness feels, but regardless of how well he did it, I respect him for trying. Telling this story from a male perspective (even if it were Zeke’s) would have forced a lot of different creative choices, and it’s hard to see how the book could have been as interesting.
• I was, overall, not a huge fan of the story-within-a-story framing. It puts the narrator in a difficult position of retaining the “magic” of teenage experience, undiluted by adult realism, while forcing a character arc between the teenage Frankie and the adult Frankie. I don’t find the adult Frankie’s life or conflict (e.g., a reporter breaking a story about the poster, years after the fact) all that interesting or suspenseful, and I think the implications of her carrying the secret of the poster are overstated.
• The important caveat to the point above is that the main plot concerning the teenage Frankie and Zeke is a wonderful tale beautifully told. One would be hard pressed to read this book and not reminisce on one’s own teenage years. More than anything, the author does a great job of capturing the heightened sense of importance that every event and decision takes on at this critical age. The poster, quite reasonably, becomes much more than a poster to these two teens–after all, what else is there?
• There is a meta-fiction reading of the book that I quite like, as the story is largely about the power of creative work, as well as the sometimes tragic implications. Once created, the creation takes on a life of its own and becomes subject to the interpretation and influence of others. The creator is constantly forced to reconcile and revise their own idea of the work, and this dialectical relationship naturally changes both creation and creator over time.
• Similarly, I think the implications of the point above for childbearing are an important part of the emotional resonance of the book. Like a work of art, a child takes on a life of its own (albeit more literally than the art does), and the parents are increasingly forced to deal with it on its own terms. The act of creation can be a perfect and sublime experience, but that does not guarantee a stable relationship between the creator and the created–quite the opposite.
• Frankie co-creates the poster with Zeke, which bonds them together and also further asserts their artistic act as a metaphor for conception of a child. This was a great choice on Wilson’s part. Further, they use a copier machine to reproduce and distribute the poster, and Wilson has a lot of fun with the “reproduction” wordplay throughout the book. Is it too on-the-nose sometimes? Sure, but I found it charming overall.
• This is… Southern Lit? Wilson grew up in the South, teaches at Sewanee (“The University of the South”), and set Now is Not the Time to Panic in Tennessee. I like that the “southern-ness” is present in the book but probably undetectable to the average reader. Wilson has a great quote in a 2023 interview where he says, “I didn’t grow up in the kind of South that I think people think of as being evocative of Southern literature. I think people still hold onto a kind of idea of the South that’s long since passed in a lot of ways. I’m not sure that it’s present in many places anymore.” Couldn’t agree more, and I’m glad to see more “Southern Lit” that is simply literature set in the South.

Like most contemporary fiction, the book feels a bit fragile. Setting the story in the 1990s, plus the criticality of Xerox machines to the plot, make this a story that will likely resonate less with Gen Z and whatever lies beyond. But whether or not this book becomes a “classic”, it was certainly a fun an interesting read. Will be checking out more of Kevin Wilson in the future.

Recommended.

Rating: 7/10