Nothing Here to See Catches Fire

Nothing to See Here (2019)

By Kevin Wilson

HarperCollins, 272 pages

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Welcome to chapter two of offbeat novels week. Nothing to See Here is from the pen–okay keyboard–of Kevin Wilson. If the name rings a bell, it’s because he previously wrote The Family Fang, which was made into a movie starring Nicole Kidman and Jason Bateman.

Nothing to See Here begins routinely enough. Two girls meet at a private school and become best friends. It’s an unlikely pairing as Madison is tall, beautiful, blonde, and rich. Lillian is a scholarship student, has no idea who her father is, and was (barely) raised by an emotionally unavailable mother distracted by financial pressures and a series of inappropriate boyfriends. Family dysfunction is a point of contact; Madison’s parents have also checked out in the affection department, partly because she’s a girl, but mostly because they just can’t be bothered, which is why she’s in a boarding school in the first place. They seem to care only about reputation. Lillian swears like a sailor, which is a perfect match for Madison’s internalized anger. By their senior year, both need to figure out what comes next. Fate makes that decision for them. Drugs are found in Madison’s desk, which is an automatic expulsion offense. Except it’s Lillian who gets the boot, because Madison’s father pays her money-hungry mother a tidy sum to force Lillian to say the drugs were hers. Mom gets the cash and Lillian gets a dead-end service industry job. So much for friendship.

Move the calendar ahead a few years and Madison reappears with a tale of how “embarrassed” she was over her father’s bribe. She’s now married to Jasper Roberts, a U.S. Senator from Tennesee, who is older than Madison but was dazzled by her beauty and left his wife and two children for her. Together they have a four-year-old son named Timothy and they live on the Roberts ancestral estate. She was rich before, but now she’s filthy rich and married to a man many believe will be a future U.S. president. Madison has a proposition for Lillian. Would she like to come live on the estate and become a governess?

Here’s where it gets weird. Lillian would not be Timothy’s governess, rather that of Jasper’s first two children,10-year-old Bessie and 9-year-old Roland whose mother has committed suicide. And by the way, they sometimes catch on fire. Yes, you read that correctly. They don’t start fires; they catch on fire! They are not harmed by the flames, though it’s not so good for clothing, furniture, curtains, or other combustible objects. There are a few other impediments to consider. First, Lillian knows nothing about children. Second, she has no training as a teacher, psychologist, or firefighter. Third, she’d be living on the estate and has the social graces of a badger, the wardrobe of a skateboarder, and every other word out of her mouth is “fuck.” Finally, the kids are not exactly thrilled to be coming to live with a father they barely remember or fobbed off to some girl they’ve never met.

You’ve got to admit, it’s an original premise! Fobbing off is exactly what’s supposed to happen. Senator Roberts is an ambitious cold fish. Madison claims to love her husband and her life, but deep down she realizes that she married into a situation analogous to the one in which she was raised. In truth, the only close relationship she’s ever had was with Lillian. Back on the estate, there’s lots of staff to help out, including Mary, the skeptical cook, and Carl, who seems to be a combination senatorial aide and fixer. He is also supposed to keep an eye on Lillian, whom he treats with disdain. In other words, Lillian is so far out of her element, that things might just work. After all, what could possibly go wrong with to kids who self-combust when agitated? Kids hardly ever get upset, right?  

Wilson could have played this for dark comedy laughs, a route he sometimes takes. Alternatively, he could have taken the logical illogical path and made this into an absurdist novel–perhaps a Southern-fried mix of Lewis Carroll, Joseph Heller, Tom Robbins, and Samuel Beckett. Instead, Wilson chooses a more conservative gambit that, frankly, I don’t think works as well as he does. To be candid, there were times in which the book flounders stylistically. Madison and Lillian often act and speak as if they are 26 going on 14. Consider this small sample. In a moment of anger Madison accuses Lillian of jealousy. She replies, “I don’t want your life. Your life seems fucked up. It seems sad.” Prose like that is neither Virginia Woolf nor Tom Wolfe. If I might, such passages are in no danger of igniting.

Nonetheless, if Nothing Here to See isn’t deathless prose, it is surely well-plotted. No matter what else one might say, Wilson has one helluva central hook. His device eventually leads us to muse upon questions of damage and healing. We often hear glib comments about the resiliency of children. Allegedly they recover from trauma more easily than adults. If it’s so, why are Lillian and Madison stuck in adolescence? (If that is so, why do psychologists spend their careers helping grown-ups resolve haunting memories?) Wilson’s novel touches upon the search for keys to unlock youthful hurt. Plus, don’t you really want to know what’s in store for kids who catch on fire? I know I did. Thus, even if Nothing Here to See isn’t a perfect novel, it’s so odd that it works against all odds. (Word play intended.) It’s a quick and lively read and sometimes that’s all the flame one needs.

Rob Weir