The Family Fang

by Kevin Wilson

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist's work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents' madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficult to cope with life outside the fishbowl of their parents' strange world. When the lives they've built come crashing down, brother and sister have nowhere to go but home, where they discover that Caleb and Camille are planning one last performance-- their magnum opus-- whether the kids agree to participate or not. Soon, ambition breeds conflict, bringing the Fangs to face the difficult decision about what's ultimately more important: their family or their art. The novel displays a keen sense of the complex performances that unfold in the relationships of people who love one another.

• ISBN10: 006157905X
• ISBN13: 9780061579059
• Publish Date: 17 April 2012 (first published 9 August 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

The Family Fang is 309 pages of a "Candid Camera". Caleb and Camille Fang put performance art above all else, although their kind of performance art I just found to be mean, but like a guy getting kicked in the nuts on America's Funniest Home Videos you can't help but laugh.

If I'm going to be honest, I could really have cared less if I ever found out what happened to Caleb and Camille, they were characters I would not waste my time on in real life and despite their great life's work of art I really didn't see what the big deal was about. It was Annie and Buster who I most cared to read about, how their screwed up childhood affected them and how they were developing into adults. Because of this I enjoyed seeing Child A and Child B shed the exteriors Caleb and Camille had perfected and in how ever messed up it was coming into their own.

When I look back The Family Fang was one big scavenger hunt, piecing together a menagerie of a story. Kevin Wilson has written an art piece that was excentric, originally creative and makes you want to get up and move.