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An exclusive Authorlink Interview with
With author Kevin Wilson
By Paige Crutcher
June, 2012
Life is a series of moments. It’s full of often quirky, indescribable, frustrating, and joyful seconds crammed together to create a world. Story, in all its’ splendor, shuttles readers from reality into a great escape. But Kevin Wilson, author of THE FAMILY FANG, found a way to expose reality - and the bumps that ride with it - and shape story into true adventure. Wilson frames the lighter side of weird in a poignant portrait of family dysfunction. THE FAMILY FANG is a story of family, hope and ultimately independence. An atypical story that hits home, Wilson proves that life is in the details, the big picture, and all the spaces in between.
Wilson shares the transformative effect of being published, knowing your story is being read, and offers a deeper look into how he crafted his characters and story world.
AUTHORLINK: Time changes the details, and the heart of a person is a fast moving current. How important are the ripples of one small incident to the whole of a person’s life?
WILSON: They are important in the revision of a life, in the reorganizing. With fiction or poetry or memoir, there exists the ability to chart those small ripples and connect it to our larger existence in ways that I think are impossible in the midst of living. Narrative, in many ways, helps us understand our lives in ways that we wouldn't otherwise, to chart those small incidents and allow them to have meaning.
“ I start from the inside and work out. I figure out desire, usually, or inherent qualities...”
—WILSON
AUTHORLINK: Annie and Buster are memorable, unique, and yet relatable. Will you talk a little about how you create your characters?
WILSON: I start from the inside and work out. I figure out desire, usually, or inherent qualities and it's only later, much later, that I even think about their appearance (important stuff, though) or voice or anything that is immediately apparent. And because, usually, that desire is connected to my own desire, it's easier for me to understand the characters and give them the depth they need to actually breathe and become animate. I have written stories where I felt that I exactly understood the character and his or her motivations, but I had no idea what they looked like.
AUTHORLINK: Will you talk a little about where you are now from where you were when THE FAMILY FANG was first released? Has your opinion of the story, and connection to it evolved since first seeing it published?
WILSON: I believe more people have read my work now than they had before the novel came out, and that's really all you hope for with a book or story. You want people to read it and more people than I expected have now read it.
“I tried my best to make it precise and clear and heartfelt.”
—WILSON
It also means that maybe I have a better chance at publishing another book, another opportunity to reach the reader. I honestly loved the book before it was published and I still love it. I care about the story and the characters and I wanted to do right by the narrative. I tried my best to make it precise and clear and heartfelt. To know that some people read it and some of those people liked it is transformative.
AUTHORLINK: Real life is messy, complicated, and layered. How do you build a novel so that it conveys each of these facets – creating a believable and palpable world?
WILSON: You resist the urge to solve every problem. You acknowledge the strange construction of the world in which we live, the imperfect design of it, and then you marvel at the fact that, despite this, amazing things happen. You allow for magic, but accept that the incantation is difficult and often results in nothing but wind.
AUTHORLINK: What is it about the love of the craft, of writing and building a written world, that inspired you to persevere – to never give up?
“I love to write. It's the closest thing to magic that exists . . .”
—WILSON
WILSON: It is impossible not to feel ineffectual in the world, a sense that you have little control over the rotation of the earth. I accept that. But writing allows me the opportunity to build something, to place one word next to another word and, if I'm lucky, have it add up to more than the sum of its parts. That's why I love to write. It's the closest thing to magic that exists for a person who doesn't know science.
AUTHORLINK: What is the biggest distraction for you when writing, and how do you overcome it?
WILSON: Everything is a distraction for me. I welcome those distractions, though.
I write when I can, but I don't feel like a failure if I don't write that day or week or even month. I love writing and one of the reasons that I love it is that it doesn't demand that I forego my family and my work and my other interests. Sometimes, frankly, I want to watch TV, and I'm not going to pretend that I am a failed writer because of that. When my brain begins to assemble narrative, I give it my full attention, but I ease off when I'm not.
AUTHORLINK: There’s an expression, “Your perceptions creates your reality.” How do you think Children A and B would respond to such a statement? And the parent Fangs?
WILSON: I can see that the children might agree with that statement; I imagine Caleb and Camille would say that their perceptions are truths and their perceptions create all reality, not just their own.
AUTHORLINK: How important is passion to what you create? And is there anything you are more passionate about than writing?
“I do love writing, but I know it is a part of something larger.”
—WILSON
WILSON: My wife and kid. Perhaps barbecue. I tend to think of writing in other terms than passion. I like to make stories. I like to assemble narrative.
It is fun for me, even when it is difficult. I'm not sure passion is the right word, though other words (fondness, interest, hobby) don't work either. I do love writing, but I know it is a part of something larger. Or at least I hope it's a part of something larger.
About Kevin Wilson :
Kevin 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, and a 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. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife, the poet Leigh Anne Couch, and his son, Griff, where he teaches fiction at the University of the South. His novel, THE FAMILY FANG, is now out in paperback.
