Now is Not the Time to Panic, by Kevin Wilson, reviewed by Katy Mitchell-Jones
Despite its title, Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson is not a thriller or suspense. There is no murder mystery, and no jump scares. Instead, it is a short, coming-of-age, social-horror leaning novel that beautifully blends the individualistic teenage mindset with small-town views. Frankie and Zeke, two sixteen-year-old misfits in rural Tennessee, find themselves spending the warm summer months together, sharing the one thing that means the most to them: art. While Frankie works on her novel, Zeke hopes to create a comic book, but they end up working together to create something they can put into the world and which people will take notice of.
Thus begins the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Frankie’s written words, “The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us,” paired with Zeke’s artwork: two skeletal hands hovering over beds filled with children, tangled in sheets. Together, a powerful image and a mysterious message. After they make hundreds upon hundreds of copies and anonymously hang them up around the community, the Coalfield residents take notice and do not understand - is it a threat of some kind? This confusion develops into concern and, eventually, panic. Everyone is paranoid, convinced there is an evil presence, maybe even a cult, threatening their peaceful lives.
The novel opens with a telephone call to Frankie from a New York reporter. The reporter claims she has it all figured out: Frankie was behind the events back in 1996. Frankie, now grown with a husband and small child, is unsettled, hoping this woman does not expose her secret to the world. She thinks back to how it all began and the narrative returns to the summer of 1996.
Frankie and Zeke meet one balmy day at a public swimming pool. Zeke is new in town and they connect over their deadbeat fathers; Frankie’s father slept with his secretary, moved away with her, and named his new daughter Frances (Frankie’s birth name), while Zeke and his mother moved from Memphis back to Coalfield, where she is originally from, after his father also engaged in multiple infidelities.
Frankie’s mindset is that of a typical teenager, as she feels misunderstood and views her circumstances as black and white. In regards to her parents, she thinks, “You had to choose sides. And you always chose the person who didn’t fuck everything up. You chose the person who was stuck with you” (18). She needs Zeke to understand this advice, to understand he doesn’t have to forgive his father or even speak to him. Neither of their fathers chose them, so they have to side with their mothers. And, perhaps maybe even more importantly, they have to choose each other.
Their relationship progresses as they share their aspirations: she wants to be a writer and he wishes to be an artist. His goal is “to make something that everyone in the world will see. And they’ll remember it. And they won’t totally understand it” (20). They decide to spend the summer making art together and, through this outlet, Frankie reflects, “I felt like we were making something important. I felt like, I don’t know, I was in control. I was making the decisions. And as long as I was choosing, it was okay” (29). Like many teenagers, Frankie feels desperate to have control over any aspect of her life, as she considers her family unstable and yet, boring at the same time. Her mother and brothers are hardly ever home and her dad is no longer in the picture. Zeke and their poster are the only stable things she has. She wonders, “How did you prevent your life from turning into something so boring that no one wanted to know about it? How did you make yourself special?” (32). While creating this poster does make Frankie feel incredibly special, the reaction from the town greatly worries the two of them. The people Frankie had grown up around do not only not appreciate the artwork, but actively misconstrue the message and make it into an ugly, frightening entity that begins to terrorize the small community. Frankie always felt different from her peers, and this leads to Frankie feeling more misunderstood than ever.
One of the other main themes from this story is that if one pushes something away into a dark corner and covers it up, it is gone and doesn’t have to be acknowledged again. This is symbolized by the photocopier that Frankie and Zeke use to make copies of their poster. After Frankie’s older brothers originally steal it, the copier had been hidden in the garage and forgotten for a long time. When Frankie and Zeke are done making their copies, it’s pushed back into the corner and covered with a tarp. “If you couldn’t see it, if you pushed it into a dark corner, it didn’t exist” (26). This is how Frankie copes in life after the panic - she never told anyone that she had been the instigator, and she simply hoped it would all go away. Even her relationship with her father and half-sister is pushed to the side, without the slightest attempt to establish communication.
This is a short novel that packs in a lot of emotion, small town scenery, and teenage angst. Anyone who has ever worried they may not leave a mark on the world will be able to relate to Frankie and Zeke, as they do their best to navigate big decisions when their world feels like it's spinning out of control.