I fell hard for Kevin Wilson’s Now Is Not the Time to Panic. It’s hard to believe two years have gone by since I somewhat embarrassingly ran 3.5 stars
I fell hard for Kevin Wilson’s Now Is Not the Time to Panic. It’s hard to believe two years have gone by since I somewhat embarrassingly ran around gushing about that novel to anyone that would sit long enough to listen. I promised myself I’d read his backlist straightaway. Here I am, late as usual, but having finished one of those at last. Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine is a book of short stories. I loved the title and the cover – I’m not going to lie. That’s why I picked it up before Nothing to See Here which would probably have been a better choice overall. Not that this was bad! It was unique! The writing is well-crafted and sometimes witty and often dark. Honestly though, I had trouble remembering some of the stories one week after finishing this. I guess that’s the problem with short stories at times. Or, I’ll be honest again, the trouble lies with me lately.
The first story immediately caught my attention when I read this:
“It was almost midnight when my girlfriend got a call from her sister, who had been arrested for taking a kebab skewer at a cookout and stabbing her husband.”
Don’t be fooled, however. It’s not a crime story. It’s more of a domestic tale about a guy and his girlfriend temporarily taking charge of the kids in this dysfunctional family. The narrator of this story struggles between wanting to help his girlfriend with her sister’s kids and wishing to flee. And then there’s the thought that when he has his own kids, it won’t be anything like this messed up situation. Sound familiar?! Of course, our own offspring will be sweet, compliant angels and our marriages like a fairy-tale.
“The deeper you get into this shit, the more you realize that nobody is keeping anyone else from fucking things up.”
A couple of the stories were unsettling. “Wildfire Johnny” was a completely different take on the genie in a bottle sort of tale. I haven’t read Stephen King in years, but it had his vibe, in my inexpert opinion. Some of the selections are about the relationships between adult children and a parent. “A Signal to the Faithful” is about the companionship between a young boy and a Catholic priest. There was an element that was deeply disturbing to me, but not in the way one might assume.
“Edwin knew how to pretend. It was one of the few things he was good at doing, to imagine a world and then take up residence there. To have someone else enter into that same world seemed a gift, or, it being so late at night, a dream.”
The final story was filled with tension and melancholy. In the end it left me confused and troubled. I found that to be a masterful finish to the collection now that I think about it. Kevin Wilson is an author I’ve got on my radar for sure.
“You could live with a mistake only if you made it once.” ...more
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