The Family Fang (2011)

Meet Annie and Buster Fang. She's a film actress. He's a gonzo journalist and failed novelist. Both of them are pretty screwed up because of their common childhood. You see, their parents, Caleb and Camille are conceptual artists whose medium is to cause emotionally upsetting events in public places, like shopping malls. In these enterprises, they used their children (called for art purposes "Child A" and "Child B"). The Family Fang's events could be compared to flash mobs, only more unpredictable and unsettling.

When Caleb and Camille vanish under suspicious circumstances, Annie and Buster have to decide how they're going to take it. As merely another staged event? As a puzzle for them to solve? Or as foul play? How they respond gives them, perhaps, an opportunity to move beyond their childhoods and carve out their own identities.

I've read novels like this before. Serio-comedies starring screwball families. I can name several right off the bat that I've liked more than this: [bc:The Hotel New Hampshire|11768|The Hotel New Hampshire|John Irving|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1318013543s/11768.jpg|1786995], [bc:Geek Love|13872|Geek Love|Katherine Dunn|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266450927s/13872.jpg|1474375], and [bc:Swamplandia!|8584686|Swamplandia!|Karen Russell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320536498s/8584686.jpg|13438215].

It's not bad, though. It's a Wes Anderson movie waiting to happen. ( )

THE FAMILY FANG by Kevin Wilson is a different sort of novel in a completely wonderful way. It’s an examination of a family, but the Fangs are messed up in a way unlike any other family I’ve met in literature. The parents, Caleb and Camille, are performance artists. The Fangs create their art by taking mundane settings and situations, and making them completely uncomfortable for unsuspecting onlookers. When the Fangs have children, it seems natural to bring them into the family business, and Annie and Buster (Child A and Child B) become part of every performance. As one would expect, such a nontraditional upbringing creates interesting adults who aren’t sure what constitutes normal behavior. As one of Buster’s girlfriends tells him after they’ve dated a year, “It’s like your family trained you to react to the world in a way that was so specific to their art that you don’t know how to interact with people in the real world. You act like every conversation is just a buildup to something awful.” The girlfriend is spot-on, and the novel follows Annie and Buster as they make disastrous decisions in their adult lives that prompt them to have to return home to Caleb and Camille. What follows is a fun and disturbing look at present-day Annie and Buster interspersed with flashbacks to some Fang family performances. The Fang children’s collapses along with the flashbacks are definitely the most entertaining parts of the novel, and although the plot drags a bit toward the end of the book, the writing still has enough little gems to keep the reader engaged and interested in how it all turns out.

This book isn’t for everyone, but if you like a bizarre story that has humor and heart, I strongly recommend you pick this one up.
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I really enjoyed this book - Kevin Wilson is endlessly creative. Annie and Buster's sibling relationship is touching, their parents are mystifying, and the plot just keeps unfolding. Reading this made me want to re-read Wilson's collection of short stories, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, which I adored.

"He tried to think of all the people in his life as chemicals, the uncertainty of mixing them together, the potential for explosions and scarring." (239) ( )

Why, why, WHY do authors insist on ruining a great book with an insipid ending? ( )

Art takes precedence over all. Hmm. ( )