In ‘Run for the Hills,' Kevin Wilson has conjured another unforgettable story of family weirdness

Boston Globe

06-05-2025

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Mad is 32, the same age her mom was when her husband disappeared, leaving her with a 10-year-old daughter to raise and a farm to run. And she will soon learn that the driver of that PT Cruiser is not a foodie looking for escarole but a Boston-based novelist named Reuben 'Rube' Hill, a man abandoned by the very same dad in his childhood. After Rube's mother's recent death, he hired a private investigator to find his long-AWOL father, whom he believed to be his only remaining relative. The investigator located not only Charles Hill in Woodside, Calif., but found the road there littered with half-siblings. In addition to Mad in Tennessee, there's a 21-year-old college basketball sensation in Oklahoma ('Pep') and an 11-year-old filmmaker in Utah ('Tom' — the only one whose nickname isn't a descriptor.) Could there be more? As Rube points out, Dad is pretty old now.
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And so begins this unbelievably adorable sibling road trip. Along the way, they learn many interesting facts about their dad, Chuck/Chip/Carl/Charles. While Rube's father was an unsuccessful novelist (in fact, Rube got his start by rewriting his father's murder mysteries), Mad's was an innovative organic farmer, Pep's was a phenomenal basketball coach who led his daughter and her teams to stardom, and they've got a little brother in Utah whose TV newscaster mom married her cameraman. As he explains to his siblings when they arrive, young Tom is a filmmaker himself, toting his Sony Digital-Eight Handycam through the remainder of the narrative.
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In a way, the book mirrors the evolution of the mercurial Mr. Hill. When they get to Oklahoma, for example, what has so far been a road novel morphs suddenly and convincingly into a basketball novel. 'I'm leaving for Austin,' Pepper shouts into the phone when they reach her to announce their arrival on the OU campus. 'We have a game in two days, you idiot. The NCAA tournament!'
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March Madness indeed. Of course Rube and Mad dip down to Texas to watch the Sooners take on the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks — and it is one hell of a game. Move over, 'Hoosiers,' Kevin Wilson can write himself some basketball. 'With forty seconds left, Pep was now constantly double-teamed, but she shook off her defenders and raced to the corner of the court and put up an off-balance three that hit nothing but net, and both Mad and Rube screamed with elation.'
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One always wonders, with Wilson, if all the arch wordplay and kooky plotting is going to get in the way of real feeling and believable characters. Like, eventually we have to meet this father, this multi-talented mystery man who did such a fantastic job of fathering and then like clockwork, broke a little kid's heart every 10 years. Who can imagine such a person? Kevin Wilson can, and the complex emotional valence of the reunion for each of the characters is managed insightfully.
Back in the middle of that basketball game, when her sister's team is doing poorly and Mad is feeling desperate, she finds herself thinking for the first time about what it would be like to have a child and deal with the constant fear that they would be hurt or disappointed (or, though Mad doesn't go this far, die.) 'Maybe every single moment of loving someone you helped make was connected to this low-level terror that hurt your heart. Is that why their father left them?'
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Real feeling and believable characters? Not a problem. Kevin Wilson continues to do whimsy with as much heart as any writer ever has.
RUN FOR THE HILLS
By Kevin Wilson
Ecco, 256 pages, $30
Marion Winik hosts the NPR podcast 'The Weekly Reader.' She is the author of '
.'