By all accounts, Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson should not have been my kind of book. Way to much weird magic realism/ paranormal stuff going on. And yet, I absolutely loved it.

The story is focused on Lillian, who is contacted out-of-the-blue by her high-school roommate, Madison, with an unusual job offer – for Lillian to look after her twin 10-year-old stepchildren, Bessie and Roland, for the summer. Before accepting the job, Madison explains to Lillian that the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin.

“How are they still alive?” I asked.
“It doesn’t hurt them at all,” she said, shrugging to highlight how dumbfounded she was. “They just get really red, like a bad sunburn, but they’re not hurt.”
“What about their clothes?” I asked.
“I’m still figuring this out, Lillian,” she said. “I guess their clothes burn off.”
“So they’re just these naked kids on fire?”
“I think so. So you can understand why we’re worried.”

There’s more to this story – Lillian and Madison’s complicated history; Madison’s current situation as a high-profile politician’s wife; and the death of the twins’ mother – but Wilson never strays far from Lillian, and how her care of the children generates all sorts of unexpected feelings.

There was so much in this book that made me laugh. Lillian’s frankness was the primary source, but also, strange little Bessie and Roland, and Madison’s son, Timothy, were the centre of wonderfully executed scenes.

Bessie had on a black floral summer dress, kind of grungy actually, quite cool. Roland looked like an intern at a bank, but Bessie looked like a girl at her mom’s third wedding.

Nothing to See Here didn’t make me cry but there were parts of this book that were deeply moving. Perhaps I’m reading to much into it, but if the fire was a way of signifying trauma… well… all the feelings.

And I had known them for less than a week; I didn’t know them at all. And I wanted to burst into flames, too. I thought, How wonderful would it be to have everyone stand at a respectful distance?

Additionally the theme of questioning one’s purpose in life was explored in a unique way. In this respect, Lillian and Madison are perfect contrasts – Lillian has grown up poor and has largely given up on finding a way forward, whereas Madison is wealthy, motivated and driven. Both had uncaring mothers. On meeting (and knowing that Lillian was at school on a scholarship), Madison reveals her ambition to be president –

She flipped her hair in such a way that it could only have been instinctual, evolution. “I feel like I can tell you this.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you’re poor, right? But you’re here. You want power, too.”

When you’ve grown up not feeling loved – as Lillian’s mother said to her, “…being a mother was made up of ‘regret and then forgetting about that regret sometimes’ – it’s difficult to know how to be emotionally available in relationships. Ultimately, we all want someone to show that they care for us. But often for that to happen, we have to be vulnerable and being vulnerable is very, very hard.

….I guess I sort of realized that my imagination, which made life tolerable, needed to be kept a secret from the rest of the world. But if you keep something hidden away, all tied up, it’s hard to summon it when you really need it.

This book is an absolute treat, and will be one that I get bossy about other people reading.

4/5 A delight.

Eating a Caesar salad and making boring small talk was not bad, not when the alternative was pulling down a set of thousand-dollar curtains because they were ablaze.

As part of the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, I’m comparing the Belfast summer and Melburnian winter. The results for the day I finished this book (July 1): Belfast 11°-17° and Melbourne 8°-13°.