#perfect little world

Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson

I really should have already written about Kevin Wilson’s The Family Fang as a page-turner. But, you know, hindsight. Family Fang is written for performance artist and Royal Tenanbaum junkies alike and as a card-carrying member in both arenas, it fulfilled all of my dark humor needs.

Perfect Little World, however, is the sweet quirky answer to my deep desire to run a commune. With a definitively-unique scientifically-sanctioned premise, Perfect Little World plays a little game of God within the structure of a 10-year social experiment. Ten families, each with one newborn, brought to live in a state-of-the-art complex to raise their children as one superfamily. All of the adults co-parent, and all of the families’ needs are met, from education of the children to professional development of the parents, housing, food, you name it. All this with one little caveat: the children will not know who their biological parents are until the age of 5.

Ready to sign up?

We see the delectable scenario play out through the eyes of the youngest and only single mother of the group, Izzy, whose own path to motherhood is a story within itself.

The perhaps most impressive part of the tale is how artistically Wilson writes about childbirth. His depiction is so vivid, so accurate, that I would not be surprised if he had actually given birth himself.

Signature to Wilson’s style, his words are funny and honest, freshly hewn buoyant logs floating down the river of darkness that is the ever-infectious world.

The only shortcoming of the book is that I would have read a novel twice the size I so longed to hear more of Izzy’s floundering tale.  

So does the experiment fail? Does it succeed?

You’ll have to draw your own conclusions.