As teens, Frankie and Zeke naively enacted lofty debates about art, which Wilson captures in pitch-perfect ways. Wilson’s witty depiction of a country obsessed with this bizarre contagion-and determined to cash in on it-doubles as a compelling portrait of anxiety. Now Is Not the Time to Panic is the heartfelt culmination of many years (and many pages) spent probing the tension between the urge to make a mark on the world and the costs of doing so-and the push-pull between art’s disorienting and generative powers. They are quirky, fleshed-out figures who seize on second chances to find purpose and connection-often through creative means. Wilson’s protagonists aren’t scratched records, doomed to replay past terrors for the rest of their lives. As if he’s never fully outgrown the hyper-self-consciousness and melodramatic aspirations of adolescence, Wilson’s fiction will have you laughing so much that you’re not prepared for the gut punch that follows. In story after story, he takes what would seem like key ingredients for claustrophobia -damaged characters prone to rumination, flashbacks, and inertia-and whips up something utterly inventive and outward-looking. Wilson’s mission turns out to be outwitting the trauma-plot trap, and doing that with antic energy.
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