Book of the Week: The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

The book that I am currently pressing into everyone's hands is The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. It's the late summer novel that I've gone crackers for, fallen a little bit in love with, and can't stop talking about. I read an advance copy back in March, so I am DELIGHTED that the book is finally out and everyone else can read it too.

(isn't that a stylish cover?)

Get the book HERE.

Meet the Fangs: Caleb and Camille (Mr. and Mrs.), Annie and Buster (Child A and Child B). Caleb and Camille are performance artists who attack normal life with audacious “happenings.” They stage rejected wedding proposals, agreed-upon shootings, fanciful candy store heists; and when they have children, they drag them along. Buster wins a beauty pageant in drag. Annie plays a scandalous Juliet. Everything exists for the creation of art. Until Annie and Buster leave, fed up, to grow up and come back again, licking their wounds, to face the most shocking “happening” in their lives.

The Fangs are exceptionally strange and exceptionally dysfunctional, and the oddness of them, both as a unit and alone, should render them aggravating or, at the very least, unbelievable. But Kevin Wilson’s writing is large in heart and wit, and his novel is one that you will want to return to, or stay in, for as long as it lasts because you find yourself falling in love. Enjoy the absurdities, but remain for the crackling shock at the end. Read this book if: you enjoy Wes Anderson, you want to imagine the effects of a potato gun.

-Megan K.

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The Family Fang is on the August 2011 Indie Next List, a 20-book strong collection of some of the August titles that independent booksellers are mad about.

You can read a charming profile of Kevin Wilson in the New York Times here. You can see a photo of the tattoo that they mention here, on Mr. Wilson's blog. Bonus treat: Mr. Wilson links to MANY of his short stories in the sidebar of his blog. You should check them out. I particularly recommend "The Museum of Whatnot" and "Spy vs. Spy."