Brightest Young Things

Inspired by our end-of-year laments of not reading enough in 2011, BYT as a collective decided to take things into our own carpel-tunneled-from-too-much-internet hands and start reading more, as a whole. So, every week (and sometimes more than once a week) we commit to reviewing a book we think you'd love. Cool? Cool. Feel free to post reading suggestions for us in the comments.

• BOOK TITLE: THE FAMILY FANG (by Kevin Willson)
• BOOK TYPE: dysfunctional/Wes Anderson-y family story
• YOU MAY ENJOY THIS IF YOU LIKED: Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wells, Wes Anderson's ouvre

REVIEW: Camille and Caleb Fang are, on the surface, the kind of parents most BYT readers (I imagine) wish they had (or maybe wish they'd become): smart, talented, fabulously creative, with a penchant for Black Flag and random dance sessions, closets full of weird art and articles written about their amazing, long-lasting performance art careers in everything from The New York Times to ART Forum. They also live in the South (as opposed to somewhere trite and predictable like, say, New York or LA) which somehow makes them seem even more awesome and special and exotic.

In practice, naturally, things are a little more complex. Camille and Caleb have been using their two kids, Annie and Buster (or Child A and Child B, as they were referred to "professionally") in their performance art since, well, since before Annie or Buster could walk or talk or be able to distinguish between art and reality. Which, while exhilarating (in theory) is actually pretty cruel (in practice). But such is the cost of art (or so they keep telling them).

Now, Annie and Buster are grown up and creative in their own (slightly more conventional) ways: she is an almost VERY successful actress and he is an almost VERY unsuccessful writer and when a series of events so perfectly horrible they may as well be performance art somehow result in them returning home, you just know all hell is about to break loose. Subtly. Provocatively. Fabulously. You know--the Fang way.

Without giving too much up, I will just say--the tidy novel in front of you is one of those rare things: a tight, perfectly composed story that keeps you turning the page very quickly, pulling you in one outlandish moment after the next (spud guns-check. fake deaths (or are they?)-check. little boys pretending to be girls in beauty pageants-check.) while still feeling completely relatable (after all, which family doesn't lie to each other? which family doesn't sporadically need a proverbial come-to-Jesus time? which family doesn't question things? EXACTLY). And Wilson should be commended for that. Often times, books like these feel just a little TOO precious, TOO knowing, TOO everything, and without a clear vision (and let me see you try to execute a novel spanning decades and some very special characters in 308 pages) it could have ended up a mess. But it never loses it's footing, and never ceases to know exactly where it is going. Sort of like Camille and Caleb--for all the distractions, their vision was always VERY clear. The rest of the world (their kids included) just had to follow.

If you know what's good for you--you'll do the same.

EPILOGUE: Yep. It's going to be a movie. Starring Nicole Kidman. Better to read it now than when it becomes one of those dreaded "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" street-cred-ruining paperbacks.

• NEXT BOOK I PLAN TO READ: Julian Fellowes' (aka the man behind "Downton Abbey", "Snobs" and "Gosford Park") PAST IMPERFECT.