With "Now I See You," Nicole C. Kear Finds Hilarity in Hard Times

Whether you’re ecstatic to reconnect with relatives or planning on how to best sneak a book under the table, there will undeniably be periods of calm this Thanksgiving weekend; possibly the only calm moments you’ll get until a month and a half from now when the holiday season finally winds down. It can often be tempting to spend this downtime scrolling through Instagram in search of the prettiest Thanksgiving table-scape or the best-dressed family, or binge on Narcos on Netflix, as has been the chosen path of my extended family.

If, like me, your attention span is not conducive to forty-minute shows, let alone marathons of them, you may want to settle into a good book. And you’re in luck, because I have the perfect recommendation for you.

A few months ago, I was at my friend Molly’s house, and I noticed Now I See You on her shelf. I had attempted to buy that same book just a couple weeks back, and had been dismayed to discover its absence in my local Barnes & Noble. I jumped on the chance to borrow her well-worn copy, and it was the best book decision I’ve made in a while.

Now I See You is the hilarious memoir of Nicole Kear, who gets diagnosed with retinis pigmentosa, a disease in which the patient goes blind over the course of twenty years, the summer after her sophomore year of college. Yes, I said hilarious. From “cane lessons” to uncomfortable interactions with doctors to attempting to navigate the freeways of Los Angeles in the evening despite her encroaching night-blindness, Kear makes the absolute best of the diagnosis that is suddenly thrown at her [it’s a genetic disorder, but she has no family history of the disease, so the diagnosis was a mutation and thus impossible to predict]. Kear’s story starts with the diagnosis, and moves forward through her post-college years in which she attempts to live each day as if she go blind the next [because she just might] to her married life, and her attempts to raise her children in a manner that passes muster with the Brooklyn “supermoms” that surround her. As we’re likely all busy today, I’ll keep this brief, but if you get a moment during the next few days for a quick bookstore visit or Kindle download, Now I See You is the way to go.