That sweltering summer, which becomes the focus of this obsessively nostalgic story, will change Frankie’s life. “I wanted other things, but I didn’t know how to ask for them.” “I’d been normal,” Frankie says, but lately she’s felt alienated. Watching boys wrestle with a greased watermelon in the public pool passes for high excitement. Her father has run off with his secretary to start another family, which includes a new baby named Frances. In 1996, Frances - Frankie, to her friends - is a 16-year-old girl stuck in the dinky town of Coalfield, Tenn. Among other things, the story is an eerie reminder that the internet didn’t invent viral memes or the mental web on which iconic images propagate. This time around, Wilson explores the tension between adolescent creativity and cultural paranoia, that urge to affect the world and the cost of doing so. Wilson’s new novel is called “Now Is Not the Time to Panic,” yet another disingenuous phrase uttered only when things have gone to hell. As a parable of the dangers of childhood - and child care - it was brilliant. Three years ago, he published “Nothing to See Here,” a quirky novel about children who burst into flames when they’re angry. Kevin Wilson’s titles, including “The Family Fang” and “Perfect Little World,” suggest the doleful ironies of his work.
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