Faith Fox

by Jane Gardam

Faith Fox has led a life full of heartbreak and abandonment, lacking in simplicity and love—and she's not even one week old. She has suffered the unexpected and inexplicable loss of her mother in childbirth; her father, an overworked doctor grown callous with stress, has neither the ability nor the interest to take on the difficult task of raising his child alone; her grandmother, Thomasina, has decided to abscond to Egypt with a retired general rather than acknowledge and accept the loss of her daughter, whom she loved so distressingly well. And so Faith finds herself improbably at the rearing of her father's brother, Jack, an ascetic priest whose current endeavor is an occult "experimental community" comprised mainly of expatriate Tibetans. What ensues is a brilliant comedy of manners that revives the tradition begun by Jane Austen—an endlessly charming passage through the North and South of England that finally gives a major and lavishly gifted award-winning British writer the American readership she so richly deserves.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, British Literature, Humor, Literature

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Jane Mary Gardam was an English writer of children's and adult fiction and literary critic. She also penned reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and wrote for BBC Radio. She lived in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

Reviews

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faith Fox is best described as a comedy of manners, and how is that defined?

A comedy of manners is a form of comedy that satirizes the manners and affectations of contemporary society. It questions societal standards. Plot, which here centers on the reverberations of a shocking event, the death of a mother, is sacrificed to witty dialogue and sharp social commentary.

So, plot is downplayed while witty dialogue abounds in this novel. The ironic humor employed is not nasty. Readers are implored to laugh at themselves. The British north / south divide, religion, the foibles of the elderly and our contemporary rat race pace of life along with our need to fulfill a thousand and one obligations simultaneously are targeted.

Beneath the witticism we observe individuals struggling to come to grips with the death of a loved one. Holly, the mother of Faith Fox has died in childbirth. The question is not only who will take care of her but how to deal with the loss of her mother.

The young and the old are equally well captured by Gardam. In this book it is the elderly that over and over again had me nodding. I recognized both myself and my husband and how it feels to be “not so young” anymore. There are a number of elderly couples depicted in this novel. Surely you will recognize yourself or someone you know in one of them. I will mention but one couple, Dolly and Toots, the parents of Andrew and Jack. Jack is a parish priest. Andrew is a doctor and it is his wife who has died. Toots' words are consistently negative but expressed in an ever so realistic and funny way. This is not to say that the eleven-year-old Philip’s character is off; no, his lines are splendidly drawn too. It is the words, it is what the characters say that is consistently pitch perfect and funny.

The setting is Surrey and Yorkshire, Britain, in the 1990s. Do remember that I spoke of the north / south divide. In the south live the posh and up-to-date. In the north live the simple, the plain, the ordinary folk. We hear what each thinks of the other.

The characters are many, but somehow Gardam introduces each one in such a manner that who each one is sticks. They are all delightfully different. There are neither evil characters nor goody-two-shoes; they are all fumbling, making mistakes to be sure, but their intentions are good or they quite simply are not able to resist life’s temptations.

The ending? Well it is cute, but I like it.

The audiobook narration I dislike, so I am giving it one star. Piers Gibbon overdramatizes and pushes the humor into slapstick. He also reads too fast. In books that have many characters one needs time to stop and think what it signifies when this person says that. A listener needs a few seconds to consider family ties. The women do not sound as women, not in the least. I believe there is another narrator available. Try that person instead. There are episodes which are reasonably well performed, but I personally do not prefer fast nor dramatized narrations.

The reason why I enjoyed this as much as I did was because it kept me laughing. The lines are witty and clever.

Jane Gardam’s books in order of preference:

Bilgewater (4 stars)
Faith Fox (4 stars)
Crusoe's Daughter (4 stars)
Old Filth (4 stars)
The Man in the Wooden Hat (4 stars)
God on the Rocks (3 stars)
The Queen of the Tambourine (3 stars)
A Long Way from Verona (3 stars)

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faith Fox's mother dies in childbirth. Her father doesn't know what to do with her so he takes her to his brother's Christian commune in Yorkshire - Cold Comfort Farm without the woodshed. On one level, this is a typical English farce that made me laugh out loud many times. On another, it's a darker novel about people reaching crossroads in their lives and having to make decisions about who they really are and what they really want. In this respect, it's often quite moving.

Jane Gardam is one of my favourite authors. Some of her novels are keepers that I'll read again. Faith Fox isn't in this category but I thoroughly enjoyed it all the same.

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

We all react to grief and shock in different ways. That is what this book deals with: often amusingly, but with a more serious current running below the light touch of the story. Faith is a baby whose mother dies giving birth to her, and the book covers the first three months of her life as she is cared for in a rather ramshackle way by a variety of people. She is only a bit player in the story, and yet is central to what is happening.

A lovely, touching story, beautifully told.

[Allie Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this because, well, it's by Jane Gardam and her writing is sublime. It is witty and clever - her hallmarks. However, I couldn't help feeling that it was not her best. Not quite on a par with, say, "The Queen of the Tambourine", say, or the brilliant "Old Filth". It isn't because there are few likeable characters, although that's true. Gardam makes it clear that we are not meant, particularly to like them or approve of their awful snobbery and thinly (sometimes not so thinly) veiled, terribly polite racism. Mostly they are selfish people who look out for others only insofar as it is the done thing or for self aggrandisement. (Pammie, for example.)

The poor baby, the eponymous Faith Fox, is a little helpless pawn, who only really seems to get proper care, attention and love from Pema, one of the guests/volunteers at Ellersby Prior. She is one of a group of Tibetans. (On the whole these are very sketchily drawn characters, a narrative device, I believe, to emphasise how they are viewed by Jack, Jocasta etc - ie as a monolithic group. People to have good done to them rather than engaged with as equals. Pema's outburst towards the end of the novel outlining how little they know of her story highlights this perfectly.) The extent of Faith's neglect by those who ought to be looking out for her is also illustrated by the lengthy passages where she is not mentioned and her various relatives appear to have forgotten her.

I thought the ending was satisfying but something about the story as a whole was not. I can't quite put my finger on why or what that might be. Still worth reading, since it's Gardam, but I wouldn't recommend it as a first foray into her work.

[Ankita · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the book you can’t only read because you live along its delightful-lively characters!
I don't know how to put into words the reviews for books like this.
After finishing you feel like it was all part of your life. You just flow with the story (without any major twists and turns) and feel just like narrative of our routine life but in different time; in different places and in different bodies! So many characters and so many things going on and everything is about coping with death of Holly Fox (who died giving birth to her first child) and taking care of a newborn baby girl called Faith Fox (hence the title but again Faith fox appears at the most on 10 pages in whole book!). You'll be struggling to remember all of them in the beginning but in the end you won't forget anyone! It's a peek in life of variety of characters having different backgrounds and religious beliefs and different way of caring and loving and how they cope with the death of Holly Fox and deal with her daughter Faith Fox.
It's funny and sad. It's about heartbreaking abandonment and slowly booming love!
While reading you'll be disappointed in what you expected but at the same time you'll be contented with unexpected lightness in your heart!
My personal favorites were the paternal grandparents, Dolly and Toots for their bitter-sweet bickering. I loved Philip for... well for being Philip.

[Chrystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought there was too much jumping around between too many characters, but I loved the grandparents Dolly and Toots, and the ending was good.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual I leave the plot summaries to other readers... I did not like this book as much as other Gardam titles. But at times I found myself laughing out loud. Gardam doesn't suffer fools lightly. I love Gardam's sense of the absurd and her send-up of the English class system. She exposes her characters in all their bad-mannered glory, their selfish acts bared for all to see. I didn't care for most of the characters, and I don't think the author wanted the reader to admire them. The ascetic cleric who doesn't know what end is up and is so other-worldly that he can barely drive a car properly. The doctor who is so self-absorbed he doesn't even care to see his own baby daughter. The busy-body neighbor who wants to be needed even if she admits that she would say no if asked. All these are part of Gardam's merry band of characters. And the grandparents of the baby Faith -- perhaps these are my favorites. They've waited months to see their new grandchild, and they finally do get to see her (I won't give away how).

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book by Jane Gardam is always a treat: 'Old Filth' had me in thrall a while back, so I was eager to get stuck into Faith Fox. And at first I was hooked. The various voices in the novel: worthy women from the Surrey stockbroker belt, a disparate group existing in eccentric poverty on the North York Moors, a lone 11 year old, an elderly and somewhat cantankerous couple, a widowed doctor all rang true as I read the tale from each of their very different points of view. We never meet the woman whose past underpins the entire story. Holly Fox dies in childbirth on line one of the book, leaving a baby daughter. What is to happen to her provides the book with its plot line.

Finally though, I was disappointed. Not by the writing - never that. But the plot seems to depend on ever more unbelievable vignettes, as the characters in some cases become caricatures of themselves. Coincidence and happenstance occur on every page, and the ending, when it comes, leaves me feeling that nothing, nothing at all has been resolved for ... oh more than three or four days maybe. Which is not an unrealistic outcome with this motley crew of characters.

Somewhere under all this excess is a fine novel struggling to get out. For me, this was a good, but ultimately disappointing read.

[Dominika]

This one was like a Richard Curtis film meets God. So I should have loved it. But it was a bit all over the place and just went on and on in the end. Plus there was one really really ick scene.

Still there was a lot I did love. Gardam is so good with strong characterization in just a few brief lines. Great parts on old age and faith too.

And there was a lot to unpack about love, disordered and rightly ordered, and about motherhood that I barely glanced the surface of. There's a character named Jocasta for goodness sakes.

Not one I think I'll reread, but I'm determined to read everything Jane Gardam wrote.

[Liz Mackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always this novelist’s stories take strangely unexpected but quite perfect turns. This one had me in tears by the beautiful final pages. Discover Jane Gardam!

[Sue Garwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ages since I read anything by this author and I'd forgotten what a treat her writing is.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one quirky book! All the characters are really weird--wouldn't call a one of them normal. But it makes for a fun read. As the story unfolds, interactions between certain characters come to light that makes for confusion between them. Jane Gardam is a new author to me. She has a way of writing that makes the book move along quickly. It's almost like a "stream of consciousness" but there are sentences, though long ones. I felt that I was reading even faster than I usually do. I'm sure I missed a good deal of references because they were British. Since I have very little knowledge of England, I went to the trusty maps on the Internet to locate the north country, specifically the Moors, where most of the story takes place. I have another of Gardam's books on my list and will give it a try to see if this one is unique in style and characterization. Meanwhile, though I didn't like the ending, this was an interesting read.

[Alexandra Daw · Rating 5 out of 5]

splendid. splendid. splendid. I just loved it. All the way through and particularly the end. June Barrie did a wonderful job with the voices. The only one I didn't like was Jocasta but then she's not a very likeable character, poor Jocasta, until the end. Wonderful stuff. Probably only for the Anglophiles though. Silly delightful nonsense about eccentric nutters. Just my cup of tea.

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not sure what to think about this book--I kept putting it down, not because of the writing, which was great, but because the characters were despicable, the plot ludicrous and the ending predictable.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotions were at war in Mrs. Middleditch... The departure of Bingham infuriated her quite as much by its timing as by the fact that she had at last lost him. In her heart she had longed for a daughter-in-law for Bingham to bring home, a little fair thing that wouldn't meet your eyes. She could have been shown the perfection it is possible to achieve in a home and in a mother.

How I love Jane Gardam's exquisite characterization, with everything you need to know encapsulated in a few knife-sharp sentences. And without ever describing anyone's hair or clothes - lesser writers please take note. Faith Fox is a charming and frustrating look at failure - failure to focus, to communicate, to connect, to love. It's about damaged, inadequate people missing connections and opportunities and failing themselves as much as they fail others. I have complete faith that poor self-raised and self-rising Philip will develop a powerful arm and smack every adult in this story upside the head before he goes on to become everything his unfocused mother and dotty stepfather are not. This hasn't been one of Jane Gardam's best, I don't think, but still a far sight better than most of what I've read so far this year. 4 stars.
***I'm compelled to add that this book includes a great deal of mislabelling even for the mid-90s when it was written. The unfortunate epithets used for everyone and everything may have represented regional speech and vocabulary in that part of the UK at some earlier time, but they reflect poorly on both the characters or the writer today.

[Alarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faith Fox goes from being newborn to about three months old at the end of the novel, so she really doesn’t do much. We judge all the other characters by how they act around her.

I hated the first part of this book, found it irritatingly cheeky, manipulative, and sarcastic. Gardam told us what we were supposed to think of the characters instead of letting us decide for ourselves, and I didn’t like ANY of them. Only two things kept me reading: my husband liked it, and I rated Gardam’s The Flight of the Maidens four stars. It had to get better. I hoped.

It did. About 100 pages in, it climbed from 1 star to 2. After page 200, I really did want to see what would happen. I was starting to like some of the quirkier characters, the supporting cast rather than the stars, and the action sped up. It was touching at times and hilarious at others. She even pulled off some great slapstick humor. This is one of those rare books that might be better on screen. It could have been a four-star book for me if the front end hadn't weighted it down.

[juulferg · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a strange book, full of ramblings of largely uninteresting and unconvincing characters. I enjoyed the last approximately 5 pages. Mostly a story of very sad child neglect (and it's supposed to be funny), surrounded by very superficial, stereotypical, selfish people. A mother who - upon multiple occasions - simply forgets her son? A father who has absolutely zero interest in his newborn daughter, the mother died in childbirth? And in both cases, no one in either their surroundings finds this even the slightest disturbing? Gardam's other books are so very much better, I don't know what her motive was for writing this incoherent, uninteresting book full of stupid people. I'm not even going to take this book to the second hand book store or any little library, don't want to impose it on any other reader.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author was referenced as an overlooked genius by Denise Mina in a recent By the Book interview in the NYT, so I checked her out. An odd book. Very British and often funny.

[Flo]

This book was strange. Funny, but all the characters were horrible people and the plot was interesting?

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

My husband chose this book for me because he likes Europa editions and he liked the cover. I started reading it just after Christmas.
I did really enjoy the beginning and I liked Gardam's writing style.
BUT the cover and the title of the books are misleading. The story is not, actually, about Faith Fox but instead about a group of people, mostly older/grandparents age (several of them are Faith's grandparents). The novel is billed as a comedy of manners, and I can see how she is parodying a certain class of British people, but mostly the novel comes across as sad/pathetic, in the literal sense.
I mostly felt sorry for Faith, and also for Phillip, the other young character in the book. I get that part of the "comedy" is that everyone is so self-involved they don't actually see Faith (which, I'm guessing, is why she appears so rarely in the book that has her name), but in the end the story just made me feel bad for the few characters who were well developed (Phillip? maybe only Phillip...) and just not really care about the gaggle of older characters who are hapless or something.
Yes, the writing was good. She is especially good with dialogue.
I have read that this isn't her best novel, so perhaps I will try a different one.
It's good to try new books that you or someone picks up just on a whim; sadly this one was disappointing.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

More a 3.5 than a 4, but I'm rounding up.

When Holly Fox dies in childbirth, neither her grieving mother Thomasina or her husband Andrew can bring themselves to care for her daughter Faith, leaving Faith to be shuttled between an assortment of family members and friends, all with their own small tragedies and comedies.

I started this book expecting it to be more of a found family story following Faith through her childhood but was able to readjust my expectations once I realized how delightfully Gardam skewers her characters and their views of the world. Her distinctive voice brings all the characters and settings to life, from the comfortably moneyed inhabitants of Surrey to the doomed religious commune on the northern moors. It's very funny in parts but also very sharp when capturing the fallout of grief and lust and made me curious to pick up more of Gardam's titles, particularly her best-known one, Old Filth.

[Laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get into this book as there are a lot of characters to sort through...but by the end I was really happy to be reading it and following most but not all of these folks through their stories. Everyone except perhaps young Phillip,crazy old Madeleine, and Toots and Dolly (they deserve a book of their own...the passages about them are so vivid and believable) are busy busy busy doing exactly what they should not be doing...skirting the real issues at hand and being completely self absorbed. But by the end, they are mostly (some folks will never change) beginning to come around and that is a good thing, especially for Faith.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faith Fox is a richly fruited and well-spiced plum pudding of a novel, unpredictable, many-stranded and with a plot and characters that could fill half a dozen novels by other, less effortlessly skilled authors. It's classic Jane Gardam, in other words. She sets out her stall in the first line of the first chapter, in which the young, vivacious and dazzling mother of the titular Faith dies in childbirth. What follows fizzes with energy and ideas, larger than life characters from comfortable Surrey and a religious community on the North York Moors; farce, tragedy and, ultimately, salvation, in a bizarre Christmas nativity on the Yorkshire coast.

[Marcus Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book may not move along like a pulp paperback, but once again I am loving Jane Gardam's use of words and character. I love hearing their voices. It's like each one's own struggles come out on the page in a way that is memorable and keeps the story moving.

Not a page turner by any means but if you are tucked away and are looking for character and setting to take you away for a few hours, this book like her others does it.

[Krenner1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love this author but did not enjoy this one as much as others. Writing is always a delight, however.

"And you might not be inclined to tell her any secrets, because although they would be perfectly safe with her (she forgot them) you had to watch them bounce and slide like dandelion clocks off her hands, scarcely touching her consciousness."

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am loving this book! Great, solid writing and characters. Magnificant, touching and funny--reminds me of an Iris Murdoch novel, which is a very good thing. I am totally running out and reading all of her stuff.

[Richard Fursland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gardam is a superb writer (Old Filth trilogy my favorite read of the past decade) but this story/these characters just don’t ring true — like some of Le Carre’s stories and younger characters set in the recent past.

[Doris · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of veddy British characters, at first so many they were hard to keep track of, but they came to life under Ms Gardam's clever writing. Difficult to follow. Not her best.

[Lee Heffner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not every book is for every reader. This book was not for me. 70 pages in I had yet to find one character that I could identify with or like. I gave up.

[Martin Peel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Way back in the 90s I once taught a Jane Gardem novel called ' Crusoe's Daughter' to a bunch of sort of interested Year 10s. I have not touched one of her books since. It was nothing to do with the teaching experience; teaching any text to any Year 10 group can be hit and miss at best. That was then and this is now...

Gardam is not an author that you see at the front of Waterstones any more, you are more likely to find a few on a second hand sellers shelves, which is what happened to me. I found Fatih Fox and The Queen of the Tambourine ( which won the Whitbred Prize for Fiction in 1991). amongst my book selling aunt's shelves and I thought it was time to reaquaint myself with Gardam.

So this review is going to look at both of these novels. The Queen of the Tambourine is written entirely in the second person which sounds like it would be tiresome, but it is not at all. The novel is written as a series of letters from a woman to her neighbour who has left the house she occupied opposite. The novel is set in affluent and rather staid 70s London. We learn much about Eliza our narrator who as things unfold becomes more and more unreliable. Things implode and there are unravellings as the value of a life lived and unlived are exposed gradually and subtly to the reader. There is much middle income, mid life angst here.

Faith Fox is a more straightforward novel both stylisitically and artistically. Faith is the name of the new born that is the initial catalyst for the events of the novel as her mother Holly dies in childbirth leaving her daughter bereft. The novel then explores what happens from there as some who should know better run from the responsibility of child care suprisingly thrust onto them, whilst others do their best to fill the gap in Faith's life. One major complication arises when Faith's father leaves her with his brother Jack who is pastor to an alternative Christian community that resides on the North Yorkshire Moors. At one point Faith ends up in the loving care of some Tibetan refugees who have been taken in by Jack. There is a break down of normal structures. Adults fall apart, die, disappear or just can't cope. There is a climatic cold but beautiful Christmas amidst the bleakness of the moors which brings new perspectives to the lives of this disparate characters drawn to Jack and his unconventional church, looking for direction and meaning in their lives.

In both of these novels Gardam's characters are searchers for truth. Their quest has led them to the church but the structures of a faith seem to be insufficient. There is a mystical yearning that is explored but not resolved in the novels. The search for goodness and meaning does bring a measure of understanding for some of the characters but always in an enigmatic way.

I did enjoy both novels. I won't leave it so long before trying out some of Gardam's other novels.