Kevin Wilson

Kevin Wilson's new novel is The Family Fang. From his Q & A with Alexandra Alter at the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog:

The literary debut about a dysfunctional family is sort of a cliché at this point, but the Fangs are bizarre enough to stand apart even from other messed up fictional families. What was your family life like growing up?

The one thing I did draw on from my parents — my parents are very insular. They didn’t have outside friends. We were each other’s best friends…My parents were distrustful of the outside world. They didn’t think much good came out of it…The outside world was this strange place that was not so much dangerous as not as interesting as what went on in the house.

How did the idea for the book come about?

In early 2008, we had this baby and I needed to write. Every little thing I did I thought, “We are going to ruin him for the rest of his life, because I don’t know what to do.” That’s when I got the idea for this book. I think I was trying to create worse parents than me.

What made you focus on performance art?

I wanted the parents to be...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue