The Unity of the Fangs

            In The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson, the children of post-modern artists struggle to become independent and are forced to return to their parents’ house where they learn to rely on each other. Although this may sound stereotypical and predictable, the children in this book rebel against all expectations and manage to constantly disappoint themselves, while only pleasing their parents. Child A, Annie, and child B, Buster, are so nicknamed by their parents, Caleb and Camille, because an old friend and mentor, Hobart Waxman, convinced Caleb and Camille that “kids kill art.” However, Caleb and Camille actually use their children in all of their art because they believe that real art centers on family; furthermore, this childhood of crazy art through spontaneous public performances allowed Annie and Buster to bond as siblings and create a foothold for them to support each other throughout life.

            Annie and Buster were raised in a household where mischief was both expected and rewarded. Caleb and Camille believe that the most genuine type of art is in surprising people, and they do this in ways ranging from raiding a candy store to fake marriages. To be included in this art, Annie and Buster were taught to take whatever they want and to do whatever necessary to ensure the success of the art. Through this anarchist behavior the children become close and begin to rely on each other. In one particular piece the children are on a plane and when Buster asks for extra peanuts, in addition to the three packets that he already has, a stewardess reacts in a way that Annie perceives as rude. To defend her brother, and keep him happy, Annie asks for five packets of peanuts and gives them all to Buster. During this same flight the children also snag champagne and drink it, at the young ages of 11 and 9. To many kids, this level of freedom would seem to be the greatest thing ever, but later in life Annie and Buster regret their childhoods of constant performance and stress (200-201). They do not truly begin to understand the complexity of their childhoods until they confront Hobart Waxman while looking for their missing parents.

            Hobart, who was Caleb’s mentor at the university, claims to know nothing of their missing parents because he has not communicated with them for a very long time. Hobart says that their once great friendship ended over a disagreement about the children being forced to perform for the art, something that Hobart disagreed with so strongly that he inverted his phrase “kids kill art” to “art kills kids.” This shows that Hobart saw all of the stress that the children were placed under and forced to deal with and disagreed with the morality of it, which is further evidence that the children were raised in an environment that could occasionally be hostile. The children disagree with Hobart’s suggestion that their parents were unfit and actually believe that their parents had their best interests at heart, which is something that nobody suspected initially.

            Child A and child B may seem like impersonal nicknames given by scientists that wish to remain abstract and unbiased, but Caleb and Camille are not scientists at all. They are artists that believe so thoroughly in something that they have followed it to the point that their kids may be suffering for it. These kids have lived on the road performing with their parents doing outrageous things, such as Buster competing in a beauty pageant, but at least they did all of these things as a family unit. Caleb and Camille managed to include their kids in their work, so much so that Hobart believed it was impossible to distinguish between the two things, but Caleb and Camille did not intend any wrong onto their children. They were not using their family for art, but the inverse of that. Caleb and Camille were using the art to keep their family together.

            Evidence of Caleb and Camille’s love for their children is scattered in discreet areas throughout the book. The clearest is there willingness to drive across several states to pick up their son, and then accommodate Buster and his sister as they struggle with their lives. Another more subtle indication of the importance of family is the nicknames of the children, child A and child B. These nicknames are not given to the children because they are the first two letters of the alphabet and thus a logical start to a classification system, but rather because the initials of the family members become ABCC. When one considers that the parents act as one unit, the nickname for the family can become ABC, the base of the alphabet. This is a metaphor showing family as the base unit of the Fang household, a metaphor that holds throughout the book.

            When Annie and Buster return home after a series of unfortunate events, they seek to avoid including themselves in their parents’ work as much as possible, and this disappoints their parents immensely. Unfortunately, their parents go missing and Annie and Buster find themselves relying on each other in order to find their parents, a feat that has remained unsuccessful to the end of today’s reading. It is clear that the mystery of their parents’ disappearance has bonded together the Fang children, and that, regardless of whether Caleb and Camille reappear, Buster and Annie have each other to rely on and will eventually find great success.

            In conclusion, Annie and Buster had a childhood that most would dream of, but it did not benefit them in life later. Hobart saw the danger that the kids were in and tried to convince Caleb to stop using them for art, but Caleb and Camille were primarily using the art as a way to keep their family close and so ignored Hobart’s suggestion. Due to their upbringing as a functional duo, Annie and Buster will be successful regardless of whether their parents are found or not, which means that in the end the Fangs were, unknowingly, as successful in raising kids as they were in creating art.