Readings in October

I realize now I dragged this out way too long, but here is the cover of the novel. Allison Saltzman, who also designed the cover for Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, did the cover design, and the art is by Julie Morstad. I have been a fan of Morstad's work, mostly because of the two children's books she's illustrated, When You Were Small & Where You Came From, which are so beautiful, so it was a thrill to see the illustration of the Fang family.

Here's a description of the book, which I did not write:

Mr. and Mrs. Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief.

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang 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. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as along as they can remember, they 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.

When the lives they’ve built come crashing down, brother and sister have nowhere to go but home, where they discover that Caleb and Camille are planning one last performance—their magnum opus—whether the kids agree to participate or not. Soon, ambition breeds conflict, bringing the Fangs to face the difficult decision about what’s ultimately more important: their family or their art.

Filled with Kevin Wilson’s endless creativity, vibrant prose, sharp humor, and keen sense of the complex performances that unfold in the relationships of people who love one another, The Family Fang is a masterfully executed tale that is as bizarre as it is touching.

I'm also going to be reading in the midwest this month. I'll be reading on Thursday, October 14, with Nami Mun for the University of Cincinnati's Emerging Fiction Writers Festival. Holly Goddard Jones and Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. They are all writers I really love, so I'm excited to be hanging out with them.

The following week, I'll be reading at the University of Missouri-St. Louis on October 20th. I begged the people at UMSL to take me to C&K Barbecue, which is supposed to have incredible pig snoots and ribs.