Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

A Most Anticipated Book of Fall from the 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, and The Week. This novel takes place in 2016, but it mostly harks back twenty years to when the Coalfield Panic of 1996 happened. That year, Sixteen-year-old Frances – Frankie to her friends – and Zeke, the new boy in Coalfield, Tennessee, sent to live with his grandmother, pulled a caper. Frankie was an aspiring writer and Zeke an aspiring artist. Frankie came up with some words that flowed and seemed to have deep meaning – “The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.” Zeke illustrated the words, and they photocopied their joint creation and posted it all over town. It became the talk of the town as all kinds of reactions and con