Thu, Oct 19
|Buffalo Street Books
Reading Widely Book Club
Join Ithaca College literature professor Chris Holmes for a discussion of Kevin Wilson's hilarious new novel, Now Is Not the Time to Panic
Time & Location
Oct 19, 2023, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Buffalo Street Books, 215 N Cayuga St, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA
About this event
This month, the Reading Widely Book Club takes on Kevin Wilson's latest novel, Now Is Not the Time to Panic. This BSB staff favorite is a hilarious read and a perfect addition to any bookshelf. The discussion leader is Chris Holmes, associate professor and chair of the Department of Literatures in English at Ithaca College. Everyone is welcome!
The Reading Widely Book Club is co-hosted by Buffalo Street Books and Story House Ithaca.
About the book
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. When the posters begin appearing everywhere, people wonder who is behind them and start to panic. 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?
About the author
Kevin Wilson is the author of two collections, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009), which received an Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson Award, and Baby You’re Gonna Be Mine (Ecco, 2018), and three novels, The Family Fang (Ecco, 2011), Perfect Little World (Ecco, 2017) and Nothing to See Here (Ecco, 2019), a New York Times bestseller and a Read with Jenna book club selection.
Wilson's fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Southern Review, One Story, A Public Space, and elsewhere, and has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2020 and 2021, as well as The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012.
He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts. He lives with his wife, the poet Leigh Anne Couch, and his sons, Griff and Patch, in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he is an Associate Professor in the English Department at Sewanee: The University of the South.