Nothing to See Here

By Kevin Wilson

Ecco     2019

272 pages     Literary

As I was reading Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, I remembered  a time long ago, when one of my children threw such a bad fit at the grocery store that I had to haul him out of the grocery cart, leave all the groceries in the cart, and quickly exit the store in disgrace. Many of us have been there—but Bessie and Roland, the children of a soon-to-be US Secretary of State burst into flames when they get agitated. Wow! Now that’s a fit to which any child should aspire!

Madison calls upon her long-time friend Lillian in desperation. Her husband’s twin 10-year-olds are coming to live with them and she needs someone to care for them. Their mother has died, and they are going to  come to live on their father’s family estate in Tennessee. Jasper, Madison’s husband, is a senator and will soon be appointed Secretary of State. Bessie and Roland must be kept out of sight. Because, of course, no one can know that the children have this unbelievable “disability.” Madison, of course, doesn’t reveal this well-kept secret to Lillian, as she convinces her to come and take a nanny job on a short-term basis.

Lillian doesn’t have anything else going on in her life, and so she goes with Carl, the family’s caretaker to pick up the children. She very abruptly discovers why these children are to be housed in the guest house and hidden out of sight, and she quickly has to figure out what in the world to do with them. Lillian describes Carl as “a man who was really into watches,” which I found hugely amusing, although Carl definitely is not an “amusing” man. Thank goodness he is there, though, because as things evolve, Lillian ends up really needing his services and his problem solving skills.

There is so much to report about the book. It is extremely humorous, extremely honest, and earnestly sincere. Lillian is an incredible narrator. She is tough but extremely vulnerable with a remarkable understanding of herself and her place in the world. She is a wonderful foil for her great friend Madison, who has a similar sense of herself, but Madison is in a totally different place in the world—equally tough but also equally needy.

I became completely connected to the vulnerability of Bessie and Roland, children whose entire lives have been torn apart. They are so hungry for human attachment, and it is obvious that they are not going to receive any love from their father or step-mother.  They ask Lillian, for example, if they can sleep with her, and they wind themselves around her in the night—Roland with his finger in Lillian’s mouth. They are very afraid that they will be separated from her, and she becomes equally as attached to them.

I am always looking for stories that I have not read before, and this is definitely one of those. Wilson is a terrific storyteller, and the fairy-tale, slightly lunatic quality of the narration seems totally appropriate to the subject matter. He has you laughing one minute, and crying the next, celebrating the ways in which Lillian approaches the children’s needs and desires while at the same time worrying  about the possibility that  the children will lose their cool and burn the house down.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner, the reviewer in the New York Times felt much the same way. (By the way she is the author of Fleishman is in Trouble that I reviewed a couple of months ago.) She begins her review, “Good Lord, I can’t believe how good this book is.” And she closes her review thus: “Wilson writes with such a light touch that it seems fairly impossible for the book to have a big emotional payoff. But there is, and that’s the brilliance of the novel—that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming. You’re laughing so hard you don’t even realize that you’ve suddenly caught fire.”

Nothing to See Here is a book that you will want to sit down with and read all the way through in one sitting, just so you can absorb its brilliance, without any distractions.

Kevin Wilson is the author of several novels, including The Family Fang. Here is his website.