What the Fang

In Kevin Wilson’s “The Family Fang”, the readers are presented with the psychologically affected lives of the children of the performance artists, Caleb and Camille Fang, due to their traumatic childhood. The novel includes flashbacks of the artistic performances the family have performed and the current lives of Child A, Annie, and Child B, Buster. The goal of the dramatic scenes put together by the Fang family was to astonish bystanders and generate mayhem and they believed that the response they received from their performances was true art. Through the alterations between the past and present scenes, the reader comes to realize the deep effect the peculiar childhood situations have had on the children of the Fang family. Annie who is the road to being a very successful actress who suddenly faces the issue of going topless for a movie scene, which leads to several other problems including sleeping with an interviewer, having topless pictures of her all over the internet, and her relationship issues with an ex and a lesbian stalker. Buster, on the other hand, was shot in the face with a potato gun, which nearly kills him along with his deteriorating writing career. Both Child A and Child B are having complicated adult lives as they are struggling to find their place and cope with their past.

            The involvement of Child A and Child B in the chaotic circumstances their parents created for unsuspecting audiences made Annie and Buster uncomfortable in many situations. To Caleb and Camille Fang, the children being uncomfortable was not their main concern because for them it was difficult to distinguish between their art and real life. After each flashback in the novel, the reader is exposed to yet another creative event that reveals even more possible traumatic effects on the children. Many times, the children are not aware of the plans their parents have for a certain piece so they have to simply react as the event plays out. In other cases, the children are completely oblivious to a situation being a platform for their parents’ “art”. During Annie’s senior year play, which was very important to her, Caleb and Camille Fang created a situation where they incorporated incest into the Romeo and Juliet play, which the children were uninformed about. The situation unfolded so much drama and chaos but the response was exactly what the parents were looking for. In most cases, the parents did not understand how this could be traumatic for the children.

When Annie and Buster face a series of unfortunate events and chose to move back in with their parents, they started on a road to recovery after many years of doubt and dissatisfaction in their lives. The Fang family was reunited and Annie wondered if “restored under the same roof, they might be good for each other” (Wilson 105) Back together, Annie and Buster slowly began to repair the damages that had been done throughout the years as they decided to have a fresh start. As they were beginning to start living a new life, the news of their missing parents reach them, which drags them back to the reality of their past and how they grew up. With this, Wilson forces them to face their past and their parents’ obsession with art through more chaos.