👋 Hello readers!👋

We've made it through the holidays, it's officially 2020, and it's time to read Nothing to See Here. I read this one a few months back but I've been revisiting it, and I'm remembering just how much I love the dynamic between Lillian and the twins. I nannied for a year during my own quarter-life crisis, and I remember how kids have this unique ability to just send a jolt of energy into your life. And it can be so hard to write young kids — few things turn me off of a book like too-precious or too-precocious children — but Kevin Wilson has created characters that feel so real to me. (You know, other than the spontaneous combustion.)

But what do you think? Reply directly with your comments or questions, or join the conversation here.

Happy reading,

Arianna

📚 Behind the Book 📚

We asked Kevin Wilson to tell us a bit about how Nothing to See Herecame to be. Here's what he had to say.

It feels strange to say that this book started with my lifelong obsession with spontaneous human combustion, but there it is. As a kid, I was mesmerized by the phenomenon. A week hasn't gone by since then where I don't think about it, the images so easy in my brain even as they frighten me. But all those people who combusted died, which I hated. I wanted something better. I wanted to survive it.

My wife and I have two kids, and I realized how raising them oftentimes felt like handling children who really could burst into flames at any moment, their emotions always so heightened, right on the surface. The conceit became a way for me to explore the danger of caring for anything, of hoping that you might protect them from the world when you feel incapable of protecting even yourself.

So that’s how the book started, children on fire. But I knew that the kids couldn’t do all the work. They were too busy bursting into flames. So I looked at Lillian, the woman tasked with taking care of these fire children. The moment I started writing in her voice, everything about the novel fell into place. I always write about family, about home, about the strange ways that we come together, and Lillian was this interesting character for me because she’d never had a family, really. She’d never felt any affection for home. She’d never had much opportunity to be around other people. So it was a way for my obsessions to feel new to me, to watch her figure out these issues and, in turn, help me figure them out in new ways.

When I think about the writing of All This Could Be Yours, I remember all the places I drove to all over my city and the region, exploring the natural elements of this part of the south. Everywhere I landed ended up making its way into my book in one way or another:

Audubon Park, New Orleans
Crescent Park, New Orleans
City Park, New Orleans
Holt Cemetery, New Orleans
Pearl River Blues Berry Farm, Lumberton, MS
The Crosby Arboretum, Picayune, MS
B&B Pecan, Fairhope, AL

The main literary influence was Absolute Solitude, a poetry collection by Dulce Maria Loynaz, which is an investigation into loneliness, love, art, nature and more.

I also listened to the music of Irma Thomas, Jessie Hill, Champion Jack Dupree, and Destroyer, albums purchased at the great Euclid Records in New Orleans.

—Jami Attenberg