#november 2019 releases

Nothing to See Here

by Kevin Wilson

Kevin Wilson has done it again. You may remember Kevin Wilson from his darkly comedic Royal Tennenbaums-eque take on the hapless performance art family in The Family Fang. Or perhaps from his alternatively optimistic commune of utopian ideals in A Perfect Little World. 

While similar in tenor, imbued with Wilson’s quixotic hopefulness and unexpected chaos, Nothing to See Here is wholly unique in premise and scope.   

Lillian, a smart girl from the wrong side of the tracks, fights her way into a privileged prep school where she and her rich roommate, Madison, bond during their first year. Then an infuriating circumstance (which I won’t spoil here) leads to a split. Fast-forward ten years later when Madison, now married to a senator, summons Lillian for an urgent, yet mysterious, job opportunity.  Lillian, still stuck in a dead-end life, jumps at the chance and quickly finds herself dousing the flames of the senator’s twin offspring. 

Literally. 

Because they self-immolate when they get agitated. 

Wilson writes in such a way that I simultaneously want to ask him to be my friend and tell him to get out of my head. His commentary sometimes made me laugh out loud in doctors’ office waiting rooms. He describes a spoiled little boy removing toys from a chest: “like clowns from a VW bug, out came so many stuffed animals that I felt like I’d dropped acid.”  And on feeling out of place: “I felt like some mermaid who had suddenly grown legs and was now living among the humans.” He expertly describes “bread that cracked open like a geode” that makes me crave a loaf immediately.  And then he subversively sneaks in plenty of touching real-life wisdom about things like life, parenthood and meditation: “And I had never thought about it this way, had always assumed that whatever was inside me that made me toxic could not be diluted, but each subsequent breath made me a little more calm.”

Wilson’s is the type of voice we need more of in the world: unfailingly witty, unexpectedly original and always, and perhaps most importantly, relentlessly hopeful, even when it seems like the world is burning down around us. 

*Netgalley provided B3 with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: November 5, 2019