Like many of you, I’m stuck at home under a state-wide “shelter in place” order as my state tries to duck under the COVID-19 wave sweeping across the country. I work from home anyway, so this isn’t as disruptive for me as it is for my husband and my two college-age kids whose schools are shut down, but I do have that husband and one of those kids rattling around my usually quiet space, making business calls from the kitchen table and messing up the TV room. There’s stress around the virus itself, too—will I or someone I love get sick?—and the economic impact it will have. But it’s also an oddly restful time. There are no appointments, no gym to go to, no lunch dates, none of the minutiae that both enrich and clutter our lives. Above all, it’s been an excellent opportunity to read.
I’ve plowed through half a dozen books in the last ten days, so it was just a matter of time before I stumbled across a real hidden gem. You know the kind of book I mean: the book that’s been out there for a year or so but you somehow never heard of it until a friend mentioned it in passing and it turned out to be great.
Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here has the kind of borderline ridiculous, science fiction-y premise that I’m basically a sucker for when it’s done well (examples: Erica Swyler’s The Book of Speculation and Light from Other Stars; Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life). Lillian, a directionless millennial still living at home ten years after high school, gets an unusual offer from an old friend. Madison, beautiful and wealthy and married to a Senator with presidential ambitions, needs a nanny for her two step-children, who have landed on her doorstep after their mother’s death. There’s just one problem: the ten-year-old twins burst into flames when they get upset. The flare-ups don’t hurt them, but they can do serious damage to people and things around them. Clearly, that’s a bad situation all on its own, but Madison’s husband is being vetted for Secretary of State. A pair of combustible children will not look good on his resume. So Lillian’s job isn’t just to take care of them, it’s to hide them, in a specially-outfitted, asbestos-lined guest house on the grounds of the Senator’s magnificent antebellum Tennessee estate.
Genre-bending literary fiction works best when the improbable premise is used in deft service of relatable stories, and that’s how it works here. The twins, despite their odd affliction, are just normal children, abandoned and unloved, who crave stability and security. Lillian, the lonely daughter of a neglectful mother, sees herself in them and connects with them through breathing exercises and basketball lessons. Sure, her charges catch on fire. But in the end, that’s not really what this book is about, and that is Wilson’s great accomplishment. After Lillian first sees the kids as human torches, she says, “I was shocked to realize that their hair was unsinged. I don’t know why, with these demon children bursting into flames right in front of me, their bad haircuts remaining intact was the magic that fully amazed me, but that’s how it works, I think. The big thing is so ridiculous that you absorb only the smaller miracles.” So it is, by design, with this book.
It’s also funny. Lillian’s caustic, bitter voice is a delight as she describes “the radio playing easy listening that made me want to slip into a hot bath and dream about killing everyone I knew,” and who, when she meets Madison’s housekeeper, observes, “I loved how expertly bitchy she was; I wanted to study her for a year.” The plot, too, is filled with high farce, technicolor scenes of violence and bloodshed elevated to the absurd by the presence of, well, two kids who catch on fire.
In short, this book is a joy. If you’re looking for something to read while the world burns, order this weird little fairy tale about fiery children from your favorite independent bookstore (not Amazon! They’re doing just fine shipping people toilet paper!). And, most of all, take care of you and yours. We’ll come out the other side of this eventually.