Now Is Not the Time to Panic: A Novel
By: Kevin Wilson / Narrated By: Ginnifer Goodwin / Afterword By: Kevin Wilson
Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
The Obligatory Wilson-esque Abrupt Ending… followed by WHAM! A slug to the gut Author’s Note/Afterword
Seriously. DO make sure to stay around to listen to author Kevin Wilson as he bares his soul for his reading/listening audience. While I’d been dithering about where, exactly, Now Is Not The Time To Panic stood in the pantheon… uhm… this is the third… of works I’ve listened to of his crafting, that Afterword just kinda shown a really, really, reeeeally harsh yet beautiful light behind the story here.
Teen-aged Frankie is a kinda sorta writer, a loner, has few social skills, outcast who does NOT wanna fit in, kinda girl. When she’s at a pool and EVERYbody is trying to catch a greased watermelon, as people do, she meets another kinda sorta outcast named Zeke. She blows him off, but she can’t stand seeing him getting bloodied as he goes for the melon, and so she sets her juvenile delinquent triplet brothers out to help him score it big, without too much further bloodshed.
And so, a friendship of two creative loners is begun.
Zeke is in town only for a summer as his mother deals with his father’s most current, and flagrant, case of infidelity. Which kinda mirrors Frankie’s own experience as a fatherless teen. So there’s that. More? While Frankie is working on a novel, Zeke has mad, and weird, skills as an artist. After taking a break from making out, the two bored teens mosey over to ponder the results of the latest of Frankie’s brothers’ pilfering runs: a defunct copy machine.
And so (Again), a phenomenon is born, all in the days before crap could even Go Viral. The two collude to print a poster with a wildly enigmatic phrase of Frankie’s creation, to go with Zeke’s creepy art, all brought together with a blood oath that they believe makes their poster, their lives special.
Now Is Not The Time To Panic then becomes a meditation on culpability (Their distributed posters start getting unfortunate notice and write ups about kidnappings and Satanism Here In Our Town -AND- people actually… DIE…), obsession, how we give Life Meaning for ourselves. And it’s kinda a contemplation of friendship and family.
Through this all is Ginnifer Goodwin’s stellar narration as she navigates between an increasingly hysterically devoted Frankie and Zeke, who’s becoming fearful and dismissive of his relationships and of his own part in the creation of this art. Frankie’s triplet brothers come alive, and all the emotion that Frankie’s mom delivers as both she and Frankie meet for a full disclosure of ownership as the novel nears its conclusion is sooo moving and painfully evocative. Goodwin becomes a sorrowful mom, one who’s been hoping and loving on the sidelines, ready with open arms. Never heard of Goodwin before, but she did a fine justice to Wilson’s most current Fraught With Weirdness novel.
Ya know, as Big Sis and I discussed this, I had to admit that this did NOT move me as much as, say, Nothing to See Here did. There was an abrupt ending, and both Frankie and Zeke skimmed the surface of Life and Emotion, but we pondered how, after listening to Wilson’s Afterword, this novel, the story, suddenly was clobbered with Meaning. We heard just how very close to Home this hit for Wilson himself, of a struggle with mental illness and despair/depression. And yessss! Frankie’s responses suddenly made sense, the whole story became rather imbued by a sense of tragedy… along with the Kevin Wilson obligatory: Gosh, I Just Heard Something Beautifully Crafted, Emotionally Evocative. There was, in other words, a sense of Hope left after the abrupt ending.
While I STILL love Love LOVE Nothing to See Here, I must say that I’m also remembering his collection of short stories, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. See, practically each and every one of those little ditties was as well written as this novel, and each and every one of those little ditties managed to weave Beauty and Heart through Pain and Pathos. Soooo, while this cannot be deemed my absolute favorite? I MUST say that, taken together with his other works, I can honestly say, with a full heart: Kevin Wilson has a mad talent to go with impeccable story-crafting skills, and he’s able to write sentences that are impeccably-written and pack a good old-fashioned emotional wallop.
Come for the story of Odd Ducks getting into Hot Water and trying to Figure Out Life, and stay for a lovingly-crafted story.
The ending? So abrupt that yeh, ya think there might be room for a sequel. But nope, Wilson leaves his stories the way Life is Lived: Story story story… Fraught Present… and then? Hope. For a Better Tomorrow, for Wisdom that might make things Lighter, more Love-Filled. More worth the certain hard knocks that are part and parcel of Doing The Best Ya Can…
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