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Cloggie Downunder
a marvellous coming-of-age tal
4.5?s
“I had wanted people to care, to notice, but I hadn’t wanted them to put their own hands all over it, to try to claim it. But how do you stop something like that? You just tried to make more of it so you didn’t lose your claim to what was inside of you.”
Now Is Not The Time To Panic is the fourth novel by award-winning American author, Kevin Wilson. It’s a phone call from a stranger that casts Frances Budge’s mind back twenty years. Mazzy Brower is an art critic, writing about the Coalfield Panic of 1996, and she’s convinced that Frankie Budge started it. She’d be right, but does Frances want to talk about it?
Back during the summer vacation of ‘96, Frankie was sixteen, her mom was working, her triplet brothers flipping burgers at fast-food places, and her dad long gone, in Milwaukee with a new family. She was bored and a bit lonely. And so was Zeke, new in town from Memphis, his mom catatonic with grief over her cheating husband.
An aspiring novelist (Frankie), an aspiring artist (Zeke), a stolen photocopier, lots of paper and toner, and an idea: what could go wrong?
Their poster had an enigmatic slogan (The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us) surrounded by some strange illustrations. They made copies, lots of copies, and put them up around town. And they made a solemn vow to tell no-one that they were the ones who made it.
The reaction initially pleased them, but the analysis of the meaning, that was a bit upsetting: “I kind of wanted other people to not understand it in ways that they assumed a really cool artist had made it. I didn’t want them to not understand it in a way that they think we’re devil worshippers who abduct kids.”
And then, in that pre-internet-as-we-know-it-now world, it went viral. It spawned copy-cats and a weird and dangerous dad militia, The Poster Posse. Violence, lives lost, none of that was what they wanted. But at sixteen, they too naïve to realise that once you release something into the world, you lose all control over it.
They never did tell anyone, so how does Mazzy Brower know? And if she tells the world, then what?
Wilson paints a vivid picture of how a single piece of American pop culture, a culture-altering poster, can expand into a phenomenon and cause mass hysteria. His characters are appealing for all their very realistic flaws; some of their seemingly inexplicable choices can be attributed to their tender ages but they can’t fail to elicit the reader’s empathy. Funny and thought-provoking, this is a marvellous coming-of-age tale.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Text Publishing.
Shelby K.
Personal and creative storytelling
I loved experiencing this story so much that I devoured it in a day. Very intimate look at many important themes wrapped up in a quick and immersive reading experience.
IbrahimAkpaka
An excellently written coming-of-age story!
The newest book by Kevin Wilson, NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO PANIC, is a beautifully written and compelling coming-of-age tale about two struggling, hardworking kids named Frankie and Zeke who, over the course of a summer, create art and grow into so much more.
Based loosely on the author's experience, according to his dedication to his special friend in his author's note.
In 1996, before the internet, Frankie and Zeke, two young people from Coalfield, Tennessee, transformed a summertime art project (posters) into a widespread phenomenon. They use an old copy machine in inventive ways because there is nothing to do in this town.
Frankie is a 16-year-old teenager who spends the day on her own because her mother works and her three triplet brothers are away doing other things.
As his parents go through a divorce, Zeke, a new nerdy, artistic boy she meets from Memphis, temporarily moves in with his grandmother. They are both outsiders and misfits in some ways. They connect right away and develop special friendships.
It was fairly risk-free. The motto reads, "The law is skinny with hunger for us, and the edge is a shantytown full of gold seekers."
Even a few drops of their blood are added.
However, as they distributed the posters throughout the city, rumors started to circulate and conspiracies started to spiral out of control. The police also got involved. Some even claimed that those authors were Satanists.
Twenty years later, when the book picks up, Frankie is married, a well-known author, a wife, and a mother. But until Frankie gets a call from an art critic researching and writing an article for the New Yorker about the Coalfield Panic of 1996, its history remains hidden and obscured.
To inform Zeke, she must track him down. She discovers him working on comic book art at his grandmother's house.
An emotional tale about friendship, creativity, and memory that explores what it means to hold onto who we were even as we change. It talks about how art opens the door to a new life that never seemed conceivable.
Wilson has a talent for developing eccentric characters who are sensitive and compassionate and who, despite their oddities, seem real. You grow to care about Frankie and Zeke, and you serve as a reminder of the significance that an occasion or time period can have on our lives.
Cathryn_Conroy
A Fun, Albeit Odd Book. The Story Drags in the Middle and Sputters to a Disappointing Ending
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.
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