A Family That Makes Mine Look Normal

My family is weird...wonderful, loving and amazing, but weird.  For one of many examples one year for our church directory all the families had there pictures taken so we could all recognize each other.  My family decided to wear those little  disguise glasses all six of us, except my dad and he had the best expression of normalcy on his face making the rest of us even weirder and that is what was forever printed in our church directory.

The Family Fang is a book about a really weird family.  The parents Caleb and Camille Fang are performance artists who prize their art above all else.  Annie and Buster Fang, better known to the public as Child A and Child B are the tools the parents use to create their bizarre art.  The book switches back and forth between descriptions of events from the children's youth and their current situation.

The book introduces us in two separate chapters to Annie, the oldest Fang child who is a nominally successful actress and Buster the youngest Fang child who is a struggling author with one acclaimed novel and one bomb of a novel under his belt.  The Fang children are adults when our story starts and both have gotten themselves into some hot water.  Annie in preparation for a part where she is asked to perform topless has wandered around the set sans shirt and bra for all the paparazzi to see.  To make matters worse, her psycho co-star is spreading nusto rumors about her, with just enough evidence to make it plausible, and Annie then proceeds to sleep with a reporter doing a piece on her, giving him even more fodder for his 

article.  Meanwhile Buster has hit a slump with his writing and is now employed by a men's magazine, writing various interest articles.  Buster goes to the Midwest to interview some former soldiers who spend their nights making potato guns.  Buster gets shot in the face with a potato and ends up with some significant injuries.  These events force the Fang children back home to live with their parents.  Mr. and Mrs. Fang are still all about the art, all about the performance and try and get their children to participate again.  The Fang children agree to record the newest piece of Fang art and witness the failed attempts of Caleb and Camille to create chaos.  Throughout this story we get scenes from the past and see some of the art that the Fangs create.  Caleb and Camille are convinced that the only true art is living art, they create scenes and bizarre scenarios to make people horribly uncomfortable and then record the ensuing chaos.  One such piece involved Child A and Child B horribly playing instruments, screeching made up songs like "Kill All the Parents" to supposedly raise money to get there dog surgery.  Meanwhile in the audience, Mr. and Mrs. Fang start to heckle the children, causing some people to join in the derision of the children and others to defend the poor things.  Eventually things escalate into an all out brawl and the family makes it's escape.  This is just one of the numerous examples of how the Fang children are used as tools in their parents art.  Back in the present the Fang parents have disappeared.  The police contact Annie and Buster and inform them that they have found their parents van and discovered  copious amounts of blood at the scene.  Annie and Buster however do not believe their parents are dead, but rather they are working on yet another project.  Going to a flashback we see Annie getting ready to perform her last play, her senior year of high school, she is Juliet and she is very excited about it.  Unfortunately the boy who is supposed to play Romeo is unable to perform and the only other person who knows all the lines is Buster...her brother.  There is much back and forth on weather the school can permit a brother and sister to perform as Shakespearean lovers, but the director finally gets his way.  The principal warns them no kissing, just hand shakes and maybe a hug.  Buster gets carried away and at one point thoroughly kisses his sister.  The resulting chaos turns out to be a set up by the Fang parents.  This is the last straw for Annie who moves as far away as possible, shortly followed by Buster as soon as he graduates.  Back in the present Annie and Buster go back and forth between trying to find their parents, and just wanting to go back to their own lives.  

A clue to their parents whereabouts pops up when the kids here the song "Kill All the Parents" on a CD.  They eventually track down their parents who have faked their own death so that they can emerge after being declared dead as their biggest piece yet.  The only problem is that they won't be declared dead for at least seven years.  Annie and Buster are hurt that their parents would just abandon them and let them think they were dead.  They debate exposing their parents, but decide to give them a choice instead.  Tired of being pawns in their "art" they tell their parents they can either end the charade here and be a family, or the kids will walk away and not ruin things, but they will never see their parents again.  Caleb and Camille are so commited to their art that they agree never to see their kids again.  Annie and Buster though sad, also feel liberated and go on to attempt to live healthy lives.

This book was a hit and a miss for me.  I really liked the first half, it was quirky and weird and funny all at the same time.  It was fun to see all of the different scenario's the Fangs came up with and watching Buster and Annie try and cope with their family connections as adults was very interesting.  I liked the psychological way that both Fang kids were always finding themselves in the middle of chaos, mostly self-inflicted even as adults when their parents were not their to pull the strings, that long ingrained way of living almost impossible to stomp out.  It was also sad to see the effects that being tools for their parents left on their lives.  Through out the scenes you could catch glimpses of both sides of the family life.  The side where art was important above all else, and the part where the parents seemed to truly love their children.  I think the most heartbreaking part was at the end of the books when the parents decide that since the kids want no part in the art, then the parents are willing to essentially give up their kids, the implication that art was more important than them all along.  This is one of the problems I had with this book, I can believe that Caleb Fang would feel that way, throughout the book it is shown that he is willing to give up anything and everything for what he considers true art.  Camille on the other hand while into her art, showed many glimpses of trying to be a good mother and genuinely loving her children.  For her to just give up all contact with her kids, even as adults just did not ring true.  The other problem I personally had with the book is most of the last third seemed to drag on and on, alright we get it, you are screwed up and depressed, moving on.  I did however really love the very last scenes of the book, with Annie filming her movie.  Over all it was an interesting book with a good premise.  I would recommend it to anybody who likes a little bit twisted, a little bit dark, and a little bit weird.  It is not overwhelmingly any of these things, just enough to get the point across.  I would give this book 3 out of 5 cross eyed teddy bears.

What is the weirdest book you have ever read?  What is the weirdest thing your family has ever done?  How do you feel about performance art?  What do you think counts as art?