The Family Fang
| Author | Kevin Wilson |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Ecco Press |
|
Publication date
|
August 9, 2011 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN |
The Family Fang is a bestselling novel written by Kevin Wilson and published by Ecco in 2011.
Annie and Buster Fang are the children of famous performance artists who, in the late 80s and early 90s, perform public interactive pieces with audiences who are unaware that they are performers and whose acts typically involve their children whom they film and credit as child A (Annie) and child B (Buster).
Annie grows up to be a highly successful actress who has been nominated for an Academy Award while Buster becomes a mediocre novelist who must supplement his work with freelance journalism. However, after being told by the director of her latest movie to appear nude in a scene, Annie begins to experience a nervous breakdown, appearing unstable to the media. Meanwhile, whilst on assignment in Nebraska covering a pair of war veterans who build spud guns, Buster is shot in the face and hospitalized. With limited funds and mounting medical debt he returns to his parents' home.
After being dumped by her publicist, Annie learns that her ex-boyfriend, who is a screenwriter, has been hired to write Annie out of the third installment of the franchise that made her a star. She consents to go with him on a trip to Wyoming. However, after he threatens to destroy her, she runs away from him at the airport and goes to see Buster. Immediately, Caleb and Camille attempt to force Annie and Buster to participate in one of their performance art pieces which involves handing out free coupons for chicken sandwiches and then watching as the crowd goes mad after the sandwiches are denied to them. Nonetheless, the stunt goes terribly wrong when Annie and Buster refuse to participate. Camille and Caleb are unable to hand out more than a few coupons and the people at the sandwich shop mistakenly believe that the coupons are valid and hand out sandwiches.
For a while Annie and Buster stay in their parents house feeling aimless. Annie discovers nearly a hundred paintings in her closet which her mother claims as her own, saying that she was a painter before she was a conceptual artist and had been slowly returning to that medium. She gives a painting each to Annie and Buster.
Buster receives a phone call from a local creative writing professor and, with Annie's support, speaks coherently to the creative writing class. After the class he is handed a stack of short stories by the professor and immediately connects to one written by a woman named Suzanne Crosby who he gives his number to in the hopes she will contact him with more of her work. Upon returning home he and Annie discover a note by their parents informing them they have gone to North Carolina. Freed from their parents, Annie and Buster go about dealing with their issues, including Buster's medical debt, which Annie decides to pay, and Annie's alcoholism, which Buster says she must wean herself off of. They later receive a call from a police officer claiming their parents are missing and possibly dead. Annie immediately believes this is part of a performance art piece while Buster suspects it is real. Annie resolves to go looking for her parents in order to prove they are still alive.
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