“Totally weird, and pretty wonderful… manages to be brainy without sacrificing heart.

“Wilson writes with the studied quirkiness of George Saunders or filmmaker Wes Anderson, and there's some genuine warmth beneath all the surface eccentricity. By the end of this fable, the Fang parents emerge as fairy-tale villains for the Venice Biennale set, willing to sacrifice everything for their art.

Mr. Wilson… has created a memorable shorthand for describing parent-child deceptions and for ways in which creative art and destructive behavior intersect.

This is complex psychological ground, and the 32-year-old Mr. Wilson navigates it with a calm experience that his tender age shouldn't allow.

It’s such a minty fresh delight to open up Kevin Wilson's debut novel, The Family Fang, and feel the revitalizing blast of original thought, robust invention, screwball giddiness. Every copy of The Family Fang sold in August should have a sticker on it imprinted with the life-giving invitation that used to be issued on movie marquees in summertime during the dawn of the air-conditioning age: "Come on in! It's cooool inside!... Wilson's inventive genius never stops for a rest break.

As he did in Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, Kevin Wilson asks big questions with subtle humor and deep tenderness.”  –

Kevin Wilson introduces The Family Fang, a winningly bizarre clan on the brink.

Strange and original and hysterically funny… It is a book like nothing else.

Kevin Wilson’s first novel, The Family Fang, sounds like a proud descendant of the Sycamores in Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You. It’s a delightfully odd story …[T]he poignant truth Wilson captures beneath the humor of this peculiar family: Our crazy parents’ offenses sometimes loom so large that we don’t realize just what they did for us until it’s too late. Here, in the pages of this droll novel, is a chance to come home and make up.

The siblings survive a childhood that includes playing the leads in “Romeo and Juliet” and go on to success… but when circumstances bring them home, they find their aging parents preparing for one final amazing act.

Kevin Wilson’s odd, comedic and moving first novel [is] a page-turner that asks heavy questions but manages to float, too… a delicious book by a stunningly nimble writer. It never fails to entertain, but at the same time raises serious questions about art, interpretation, child-rearing, privacy, publicity and leaving home

Wilson's widely praised novel about performance artists gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘dysfunctional family’ and may just leave you thinking more fondly of your own relatives in time for those summertime family reunions.

Wild… kudos for wit and quirky imagination.

Fans of Wes Anderson and things that are labeled “quirky” will probably enjoy this debut novel from Kevin Wilson, whose excellent collection of short stories we featured back in 2009.

Fast-moving… [Wilson] spins one wild scenario after another. Then, while you’re laughing, he sneaks in something sad… At the heart of The Family Fang is a warning about the danger of conflating life and art, specifically, parenting and art.

With a biting wit and a tender heart… [Wilson’s] writing is filled with a certain tart social satire that partakes of what might be called the Southern gothic sense of humor, dark but very, very funny… this book explores the colliding, conflicting facets of the parent-child relationship, with layers of love, hate, betrayal and compromise.

A highly engaging and imaginative first novel…Wilson has a gift for characterization and dialogue.

[The Family Fang] allows Wilson to dazzle and amuse us with some very inventive and provocatively imagined performance art.

Wilson concocts a chronicle of our age and time which seems at once ageless and timeless

In "The Family Fang," debut novelist Kevin Wilson keeps the reader guessing as to how Buster and Annie will deal with their mom and dad's "Royal Tenenbaums"-esque antics -- and whether the Fangs will ever decide to put the art away and focus on family.

A funny, interesting novel that you will urge your friends to read so you can talk to someone about it…

Kevin Wilson is an exceptionally funny writer.

A hugely likeable book – funny, colorful, and memorable…

Comparisons to the unbearable Tenenbaums will be inescapable, no doubt, but the art world offers enough material weirdness to make a pretty hilarious novel.

Wilson…tells his madcap story with straight-faced aplomb, highlighting the tricky intersection of family life and artistic endeavor. All fiction readers will enjoy this comic/tragic look at domesticity.

his goofy, slyly hilarious novel is part social satire, part detective story, and part just plain good storytelling….  More engaging than A Visit from the Goon Squad, The Family Fang manages to be both hip and sweet at the same time.

The subtlety of the comedy is flawless, channeling the filmmaking of Wes Anderson or Rian Johnson.  A fantastic first novel that asks if the kids are alright, finding answers in the most unexpected places.

Wilson’s bizarre, mirthful debut novel traces the genesis of the Fang family, art world darlings who make “strange and memorable things.”…Though leavened with humor, the closing chapters still face hard truths about family relationships, which often leave us, like the grown-up Buster and Annie, wondering if we are constructing our own lives, or merely taking part in others’.

Kevin Wilson's novel, The Family Fang, was one of the most talked about titles at BEA. With whimsy reminiscent of a Wes Anderson flick, he presents a family of performance artists specializing in creating chaos. It's not all fun and games, though, and Wilson pulls the fuzzy line between art and life very taut when the parents go missing. Are they in danger, or is this just another part of the act?