Now is Not the Time to Panic

Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson 256 pages

 

It’s been a few weeks since I finished this novel, yet the story has stuck with him. It’s one of the books that I really wasn’t into, yet I couldn’t stop reading. I had to know how it ended.

 

The book opens in 2016. Frances Eleanor Budge---author, wife, mother, daughter---is contacted by a journalist named Mazzy. Mazzy knows that Frances is from Coalfield, Tennessee, and is doing a story on the 20^th anniversary of the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Does Frances, then known, as Frankie, recall the incident?

 

In the Summer of 1996, sixteen-year-old Frankie is dreading the long, sizzling summer in Coalfield. She is a loner, has no friends, there is nothing to do and is a budding writer. Plus her older, triplet brothers have their hearts set on irritating her.

 

Frankie bumps into Zeke, another sixteen-year-old, who is staying with his grandmother for the summer. He knows no one, and there is nothing to do. Zeke is an artist, but from the author’s descriptions, his art is rather Avant Garde. Together, they decided to create art. Zeke on image, Frankie on words. They like what they make.

 

In the garage at Frankie’s house there is an antique copier that, amazingly, still works. They print off several copies and hang them around town. As the townspeople begin to see them, popping up everywhere, they begin to wonder who is behind the poster since it is unsigned. Soon the town is obsessed with the poster. Especially since they keep popping up everywhere. Rumors circulate, people are killed, parents keep their kids indoors.

 

As the summer winds down, Frankie and Zeke go their separate ways, the furor over the poster subsides, but its impact on the town and beyond lingers on.

 

This was an okay story. It’s an interesting plot on the power of art. I wasn’t all that impressed with either Frankie or Zeke. For me it was a slow read, but I was interested to see how the author would plot the story and end it. Since Now is Not the Time to Panic was “okay,” it receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.