Novelist Kevin Wilson Coming to Hampden-Sydney

On Wednesday, February 5, Hampden-Sydney College hosts author Kevin Wilson reading from his recent novel, The Family Fang.

The Family Fang was included in the 2011 New York Times Bestseller list and was named one of the Top Ten Books of 2011 by TIME Magazine, Esquire, and People Magazine, among others.  The novel centers on performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang who have dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist’s work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. For as long as they can remember, Buster and Annie Fang starred (unwillingly) in their parents’ madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficult to cope with life outside the fishbowl of their parents’ strange world.

Publishers Weekly calls it, “[A] bizarre, mirthful debut novel…leavened with humor.”  Kirkus Reviews says, “A fantastic first novel that asks if the kids are alright, finding answers in the most unexpected places.”

Wilson is the author of the collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Ecco/Harper Perennial, 2009), which received an Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson Award, as well as the novel, The Family Fang (Ecco, 2011).  His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, One Story, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere, and has appeared in four volumes of the New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best anthology as well as The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012.  He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts.  He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, and is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of the South.

The poetry reading, free and open to the public, begins at 4:30 p.m. on the fourth floor of Bortz Library.  This event is part of Hampden-Sydney’s continuing commitment to the intellectual and cultural enrichment of the Southside community.