Art’s life-changing power explored
For the past 25 years, author Kevin Wilson has repeated to himself a semi-poetical, seminonsensical phrase that evokes the self-mythologizing bravado of outlaw musicians: “The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are the fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.”
The phrase became “a mantra of sorts,” he explained in promotional material for his latest novel, “Now Is Not the Time to Panic,” “a magic spell” that helped him cope with painful, recurring thoughts that he had experienced since childhood, later diagnosed as Tourette syndrome.
That phrase has become the centerpiece of his new novel, an earnest exploration of adolescence and the power of art to change lives. It is narrated by novelist Frankie Budge, who writes subversive Nancy Drew fan fiction and is devoted to her husband and daughter.
One day she gets a call from an art critic who wants to know if she was responsible for a crude, hand-lettered poster that first showed up in Coalfield, Tennessee, some 20 years earlier, eventually becoming a global pop culture phenomenon.
She was, of course, and most of the novel is a long flashback about the events of that summer, when a 16-year-old Frankie teamed up with a fellow teenage misfit, Zeke, to create an artwork with the above-mentioned “edge” mantra, accompanied by Zeke’s vaguely threatening, apocalyptic illustrations.
At first, their DIY project seems like harmless fun. But soon, it is condemned as the devil’s work, drawing media attention, spawning imitations and bringing hordes of outsiders to town.
When, in the ensuing uproar, people die, Frankie and Zeke’s budding romance goes south, and neither one ever speaks of it again — until Frankie gets that call and has to reckon with the consequences of their actions, and what it means to put art out into the world.
Wilson has created in Frankie and Zeke two quirky, appealing characters who can barely contain their own combustible blend of teenage omnipotence and despair.
The novel wobbles a little when Wilson is tasked with writing grown-up Frankie, but, overall, he has written a seductive, highly imaginative story that testifies to the transformative power of art. — Ann Levin, Associated Press
Aside from the namesake beer, Samuel Adams
in many ways feels like the forgotten Founding Father. No biography was written about him until about six decades after his death, no statue erected until the Revolution’s centennial.
With “The Revolutionary,” historian Stacy Schiff seeks to remedy that with a biography that details Adams’ hand in inspiring the Revolution. Schiff creates a detailed narrative of the role that Adams
played not on the battlefield but in winning over hearts and minds to the cause of independence.
From his role in the
Tea Party to the Stamp
Act protests, Schiff helps expand on the growing shelf of Founding Father biographies that are shaping popular culture.
Schiff also takes one of the most well-worn moments in American history — Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride in 1775 — and makes it feel new again. She describes how the ride was to warn Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason.
In addition, she explores how and why Adams faded from public imagination in the years after his death. It describes how he was viewed as someone more interested in the ideas that inspired the Revolution than the institutions that followed.
As Schiff describes it, Adams “helped to erect the intellectual architecture of a republic but had neither gift for nor interest in its political design.”
It’s hard to put down
Schiff ’s book without a newfound appreciation for just how important that role was for the nation’s birth.