Now Is Not the Time to Panic: A Novel

Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of November 2022 We’re huge fans of Kevin Wilson’s big-hearted novels (Nothing to See Here, The Family Fang), and his latest will make you grin from ear to ear. Frankie and Zeke are teenagers—creative oddballs, if you will—who meet over the course of a summer and embark on an art project that takes on a life of its own, forever changing their lives, that of their families, and beyond. Like Wilson’s other novels, your heart will expand as you dive into the world that Frankie and Zeke create together. There’s so much to love about this book: the big questions it raises about art as social transformation and culpability (are you responsible for just what you make or the effect is has on people’s lives?) but the best part is reading about two kids who are having the time of their lives. Their sense of adventure, joyous obsessions, and life-altering friendship is infectious. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Named a Best Book of the Year by: Time * Kirkus Reviews * USA Today * Entertainment Weekly * Garden & Gun * Vox * Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Most Anticipated Book of Fall from: Associated Press * Atlanta Journal-Constitution * BookPage * Book Riot * The Boston Globe * Entertainment Weekly * Esquire * Garden & Gun * LitHub * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Sunset Magazine * Time * Town & Country * The Millions * USA Today * Vogue * Vulture * The Week
An exuberant, bighearted novel about two teenage misfits who spectacularly collide one fateful summer, and the art they make that changes their lives forever
Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge—aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner—is determined to make it through yet another summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s house and who is as awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.
The posters begin appearing everywhere, and people wonder who is behind them and start to panic. Satanists, kidnappers—the rumors won’t stop, and soon the mystery has dangerous repercussions that spread far beyond the town.
Twenty years later, Frances Eleanor Budge gets a call that threatens to upend her carefully built life: a journalist named Mazzy Brower is writing a story about the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Might Frances know something about that?
A bold coming-of-age story, written with Kevin Wilson’s trademark wit and blazing prose, Now Is Not the Time to Panic is a nuanced exploration of young love, identity, and the power of art. It’s also about the secrets that haunt us—and, ultimately, what the truth will set free.