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Fox
A psychological suspense about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school.
Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community, including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy, begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.
A hypnotic, galloping tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim vs. predator, Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox illuminates the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands. A character as magnetically diabolical as Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and Vladimir Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, Francis Fox enchants and manipulates nearly everyone around him, until at last he meets someone he can’t outfox. Written in Oates’s trademark intimate, sweeping style, and interweaving multiple points of view, Fox is a triumph of craftsmanship and artistry, a novel as profound as it is propulsive, as moving as it is full of mystery.
Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community, including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy, begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.
A hypnotic, galloping tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim vs. predator, Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox illuminates the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands. A character as magnetically diabolical as Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and Vladimir Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, Francis Fox enchants and manipulates nearly everyone around him, until at last he meets someone he can’t outfox. Written in Oates’s trademark intimate, sweeping style, and interweaving multiple points of view, Fox is a triumph of craftsmanship and artistry, a novel as profound as it is propulsive, as moving as it is full of mystery.
672 pages, Hardcover
First published June 17, 2025
2230 people are currently reading
36360 people want to read
About the author
Joyce Carol Oates
859 books9,693 followersJoyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel Them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014, and is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor Emerita in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing. From 2016 to 2020, she was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she taught short fiction in the spring semesters. She now teaches at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.
Oates was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2016.
Pseudonyms: Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,359 reviews
April 18, 2025
Fox is a literary thriller, with a modern-day Lolita storyline shot straight through it.
It’s dark like season one of True Detective is dark—slow, heavy, and not afraid to go there.
The story opens with a car overturned in a lake and a body, almost completely ravaged, discovered beside it. When the body is identified as a beloved teacher, Francis Fox, who taught at an elite boarding school, nobody can understand why this would happen.
An investigation lays the truth bare, revealing the dark underbelly of the town and the people who live there.
This book slowly and unflinchingly grabs ahold of the reader, forcing them to peer out from behind the eyes of a true monster, unable to look away until every stone is left unturned.
I can’t tell you the last time I read something this horrifying. And I’m equally unsure of when it’ll leave my mind.
Thank you to the publisher for an early review copy!
It’s dark like season one of True Detective is dark—slow, heavy, and not afraid to go there.
The story opens with a car overturned in a lake and a body, almost completely ravaged, discovered beside it. When the body is identified as a beloved teacher, Francis Fox, who taught at an elite boarding school, nobody can understand why this would happen.
An investigation lays the truth bare, revealing the dark underbelly of the town and the people who live there.
This book slowly and unflinchingly grabs ahold of the reader, forcing them to peer out from behind the eyes of a true monster, unable to look away until every stone is left unturned.
I can’t tell you the last time I read something this horrifying. And I’m equally unsure of when it’ll leave my mind.
Thank you to the publisher for an early review copy!
September 29, 2025
I don't remember being as disturbed by Lolita as I was by this book. And I don't think it has so much to do with the monster. Mr. Fox wouldn't exist without Humbert Humbert. He makes it clear how much he loathes Lolita, especially for how pathetic and frightened his protagonist is. The biggest difficulty was actually seeing the perspective of the victims and their unrelenting defense of their abuser. It's true that halfway through it becomes a bit more True Detective, but until then, it was a difficult read. I'm sure I won't revisit it, even if it is a worthy book. I am, however, curious to return to Lolita.
July 3, 2025
⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
Pre-Read Notes
I grabbed this because I've enjoyed Oates's writing in the past. I liked We Were the Mulvaneys, a wonderfully sad family epic, and Black Water, a short experimental novel that plays with the power of a narrative voice and its impact on the outcome of a story, my favorite from her. Joyce Carol Oates's books are normally quite long because, I think, she takes so long to open up a story. And she's definitely taking her time here!
"Miranda Myles lingering puppylike in the corridor outside Mr. Farrell’s office stricken and staring toward his door. Worse, seated on the floor with knees drawn to her chest, patiently waiting to see him. Farrell was embarrassed by her presence. Yet gratified, that such a pretty girl should appear to be— well, infatuated with him. Didn’t want anyone to notice . Yet, wanted them to notice. Wanted them to envy him. Yet, not to blame him." p123
The generosity of women! Farrell is continually astonished. He is blessed. A man can be a pure unabashed bastard yet there’s a woman who will forgive him. Hell, women will forgive you before they even know what they’re forgiving. p131
Final Review
Joyce Carol Oates is brilliant every time but I don't always love her work. She tends to wrestle with very difficult subject matter from unexplored perspectives. In We Were the Mulvaneys, for instance, she explores how the SA of a teen girl affects each member of her family and the whole unit. This book does a similar thing-- it is the perspective that makes it brilliant.
That said, I sort of feel like this is the latest book in a pile of them about teachers grooming their middle grade students and doing irreparable harm to them. These books describe the crimes against the children to the point of salaciousness. I don't really understand this trend in fiction right now and I honestly feel that authors taking advantage of it are cashing in on something icky. But typical Oates, there might be redemption in her treatment of the elements. She brings us in close to a terrible man and shows us the dirt under his fingernails, and that's a perspective with social value. Also, she shows the aftermath of such relationships in the victims as adults, another valuable perspective. Do these redeem the use of such a terrible crime? We'll see. Edit to come.
*edit Listen, this is a dark, challenging book. In the end, I thought the book was worth how uncomfortable I became a few times while I read. Will you agree? Maybe. Will you think it's icky? Definitely maybe. But it's undeniable how gifted Oates is at walking the reader all the way around the issue. And I loved the ending. It might feel anticlimactic, but I think that has an important purpose that I *can't share* because it's a spoiler! Anyway...give it a chance, but first check my content warnings below.
I recommend FOX to fans of experimental form in fiction, true crime style fiction, and literary suspense books, but please be aware that this book contains very dark material. It's sort of where Oates has always shined.
My 3 Favorite Things:
✔️ The opening scene is gripping and sort of lets off on a cliff hanger, well placed, which drew me in strongly enough to carry my interest through the hundred or so pages of setup that follows.
✔️ Princess Di, a small high-energy terrier rescue dog, is my favorite character. I think Oates's treatment of this character's perspective, written into her owner's scenes, is quite well done. The dog's "voice" easily distinguishes itself from her human's voice.
✔️ I love fish-out-of-water stories and this main character, P. Cady, curmudgeonly and socially awkward, is in for a good one.
Notes:
1. Content warnings: child SA, pedophilia, grooming, forced eating, drugging with food, anorexia, murder, decomposition, violence to animals, animal death, carion, guns, car accidents, police, child trauma and PTSD.
2. If I had to give this one a genre, I'd call it literary dark domestic suspense.
Thank you to the author Joyce Carol Oates, publishers Hogarth, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of FOX. All views are mine.
Pre-Read Notes
I grabbed this because I've enjoyed Oates's writing in the past. I liked We Were the Mulvaneys, a wonderfully sad family epic, and Black Water, a short experimental novel that plays with the power of a narrative voice and its impact on the outcome of a story, my favorite from her. Joyce Carol Oates's books are normally quite long because, I think, she takes so long to open up a story. And she's definitely taking her time here!
"Miranda Myles lingering puppylike in the corridor outside Mr. Farrell’s office stricken and staring toward his door. Worse, seated on the floor with knees drawn to her chest, patiently waiting to see him. Farrell was embarrassed by her presence. Yet gratified, that such a pretty girl should appear to be— well, infatuated with him. Didn’t want anyone to notice . Yet, wanted them to notice. Wanted them to envy him. Yet, not to blame him." p123
The generosity of women! Farrell is continually astonished. He is blessed. A man can be a pure unabashed bastard yet there’s a woman who will forgive him. Hell, women will forgive you before they even know what they’re forgiving. p131
Final Review
Joyce Carol Oates is brilliant every time but I don't always love her work. She tends to wrestle with very difficult subject matter from unexplored perspectives. In We Were the Mulvaneys, for instance, she explores how the SA of a teen girl affects each member of her family and the whole unit. This book does a similar thing-- it is the perspective that makes it brilliant.
That said, I sort of feel like this is the latest book in a pile of them about teachers grooming their middle grade students and doing irreparable harm to them. These books describe the crimes against the children to the point of salaciousness. I don't really understand this trend in fiction right now and I honestly feel that authors taking advantage of it are cashing in on something icky. But typical Oates, there might be redemption in her treatment of the elements. She brings us in close to a terrible man and shows us the dirt under his fingernails, and that's a perspective with social value. Also, she shows the aftermath of such relationships in the victims as adults, another valuable perspective. Do these redeem the use of such a terrible crime? We'll see. Edit to come.
*edit Listen, this is a dark, challenging book. In the end, I thought the book was worth how uncomfortable I became a few times while I read. Will you agree? Maybe. Will you think it's icky? Definitely maybe. But it's undeniable how gifted Oates is at walking the reader all the way around the issue. And I loved the ending. It might feel anticlimactic, but I think that has an important purpose that I *can't share* because it's a spoiler! Anyway...give it a chance, but first check my content warnings below.
I recommend FOX to fans of experimental form in fiction, true crime style fiction, and literary suspense books, but please be aware that this book contains very dark material. It's sort of where Oates has always shined.
My 3 Favorite Things:
✔️ The opening scene is gripping and sort of lets off on a cliff hanger, well placed, which drew me in strongly enough to carry my interest through the hundred or so pages of setup that follows.
✔️ Princess Di, a small high-energy terrier rescue dog, is my favorite character. I think Oates's treatment of this character's perspective, written into her owner's scenes, is quite well done. The dog's "voice" easily distinguishes itself from her human's voice.
✔️ I love fish-out-of-water stories and this main character, P. Cady, curmudgeonly and socially awkward, is in for a good one.
Notes:
1. Content warnings: child SA, pedophilia, grooming, forced eating, drugging with food, anorexia, murder, decomposition, violence to animals, animal death, carion, guns, car accidents, police, child trauma and PTSD.
2. If I had to give this one a genre, I'd call it literary dark domestic suspense.
Thank you to the author Joyce Carol Oates, publishers Hogarth, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of FOX. All views are mine.
June 17, 2025
This is a difficult book to rate because it was a difficult book to read, but I try not to rate a book low just because I have a trigger warning with the content. I don't really have any trigger warnings. But I struggled with this one because of some of the authorial choices in depicting child abuse.
I've long been an admirer of JCO's writing and there's no question that she's a master at unflinching, visceral narratives that will provoke reactions of disgust and alarm. So I was excited to get an ARC for her latest, a literary thriller exploring the many angles of the insidiousness of child abuse and how it affects the community of a small town.
This the story of Francis Fox, an English teacher who teaches at elite private middle schools and is a pedophile, his target of choice 12- and 13- year old girls. He starts innocently enough, crossing boundaries with one of his students who has a crush on him, and his behavior snowballs from there, going so far as to make a website for his "Sleeping Beauties." He's able to escape accountability on charm alone and being a master of disguise.
At his latest school, Langhorne Academy, the abuse deepens and becomes serial, as he manipulates his students like some kind of cult leader and leaves them shells of human beings at the end. This really showed how abusers are able to get away with it for so long, by getting trusted adults on their side who swear that their close friend could never be so evil, going so far as to establish prizes and foundations in his name after his death. I used to work as a courtroom clerk and these were the hardest cases to watch because of that. The wife who grimly accompanied her husband to every court hearing and refused to believe he could have raped a child.
I almost rated this book four stars because it did a very good job of showing the far-reaching nature of abuse in a small society. Reading this made my skin crawl and it made me want to take a cold shower after I finished every section. It certainly wasn't an enjoyable reading experience. But you don't read JCO for comfort.
Where I struggled with it was this - when I was a courtroom clerk the other hardest cases were child pornography cases. The child is victimized once and yet they are traumatized over and over again as these images are disseminated among subscribers. Yes, these are fictional characters, and I applaud the writing for inspiring such an emotional reaction from me. But I struggled with the author's decision to show the child's point of view as these rapes were occuring, using terms like Mr. Tongue and Mr. Teddy Bear and done in a way that was intended to arouse and also disgust for the arousal, like a modern day Lolita.
These are the kinds of scenes that people who scoff at readers who need trigger warnings applaud themselves for perservering through. I just found it cringe, uncomfortable and had no literary merit beyond the artifice of performatory shock value. No need to traumatize the reader to make your point. Some things only cops and courts of law should see. Mainly because treating it like a scene from a spicy romance novel normalizes it to a disturbing degree. It dilutes the impact of the abuse and makes it seem like moody teenage drama.
I also found this book overlong (Did it really need to be over 600 pages!), a real drag to read in parts and as a thriller it was not very twisty and was really fairly boring. The most exciting revelations happened in the last 20%.
A cast filled with unlikable characters doing disgusting things. I guess I am meant to be disgusted and examine the depravity of human nature, but I just found this a real rambling drag to push through. I feel relieved that it's over. It will definitely stay with me though, in a way that makes me cringe.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I've long been an admirer of JCO's writing and there's no question that she's a master at unflinching, visceral narratives that will provoke reactions of disgust and alarm. So I was excited to get an ARC for her latest, a literary thriller exploring the many angles of the insidiousness of child abuse and how it affects the community of a small town.
This the story of Francis Fox, an English teacher who teaches at elite private middle schools and is a pedophile, his target of choice 12- and 13- year old girls. He starts innocently enough, crossing boundaries with one of his students who has a crush on him, and his behavior snowballs from there, going so far as to make a website for his "Sleeping Beauties." He's able to escape accountability on charm alone and being a master of disguise.
At his latest school, Langhorne Academy, the abuse deepens and becomes serial, as he manipulates his students like some kind of cult leader and leaves them shells of human beings at the end. This really showed how abusers are able to get away with it for so long, by getting trusted adults on their side who swear that their close friend could never be so evil, going so far as to establish prizes and foundations in his name after his death. I used to work as a courtroom clerk and these were the hardest cases to watch because of that. The wife who grimly accompanied her husband to every court hearing and refused to believe he could have raped a child.
I almost rated this book four stars because it did a very good job of showing the far-reaching nature of abuse in a small society. Reading this made my skin crawl and it made me want to take a cold shower after I finished every section. It certainly wasn't an enjoyable reading experience. But you don't read JCO for comfort.
Where I struggled with it was this - when I was a courtroom clerk the other hardest cases were child pornography cases. The child is victimized once and yet they are traumatized over and over again as these images are disseminated among subscribers. Yes, these are fictional characters, and I applaud the writing for inspiring such an emotional reaction from me. But I struggled with the author's decision to show the child's point of view as these rapes were occuring, using terms like Mr. Tongue and Mr. Teddy Bear and done in a way that was intended to arouse and also disgust for the arousal, like a modern day Lolita.
These are the kinds of scenes that people who scoff at readers who need trigger warnings applaud themselves for perservering through. I just found it cringe, uncomfortable and had no literary merit beyond the artifice of performatory shock value. No need to traumatize the reader to make your point. Some things only cops and courts of law should see. Mainly because treating it like a scene from a spicy romance novel normalizes it to a disturbing degree. It dilutes the impact of the abuse and makes it seem like moody teenage drama.
I also found this book overlong (Did it really need to be over 600 pages!), a real drag to read in parts and as a thriller it was not very twisty and was really fairly boring. The most exciting revelations happened in the last 20%.
A cast filled with unlikable characters doing disgusting things. I guess I am meant to be disgusted and examine the depravity of human nature, but I just found this a real rambling drag to push through. I feel relieved that it's over. It will definitely stay with me though, in a way that makes me cringe.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
June 26, 2025
If you want to spend 25 hours listening to a pedophile describe what he does to children then this is the book for you. It took too long to get the second half of the book when the detective comes in. The first half is so gratuitous in the description of the pedophile that’s it’s almost impossible to get through. The long drawn out descriptions add nothing to the value of the plot. Mr. Fox is whiny and easy to hate. I found myself continuing yo read in the hopes it would get better. I didn’t enjoy this at all. It was a matter of getting through it and finishing. But not in a way that was meaningful or thought provoking. I’m not against reading tough topics, when they bring value and make you think. This did none of that.
November 26, 2024
Good lord, this book!
First, despite the fact that the summary makes it pretty clear exactly what sort of dark and disturbing secrets we can expect to read here, I’d kind of forgotten that these are secrets as written by Joyce Carol Oates. And in pure Oates fashion, they are offered in such a sinuous way that each and every chapter just ends up more and more of a gut punch. The novel hurts.
If you’re a content warning sort of a reader, consider yourself WARNED (caps fully intended) – this can be very hard to read.
It’s also intelligent, insidious, and an absolute page turner of a novel. Oates has a habit of giving us all the darkest parts of characters – the things you really don’t want to think about. And at 600+ pages, you’re going to think about those things…a lot.
The ending is satisfying. It’s right.
The book will stay with me. Not sure I’m thrilled about that, but it was definitely the kind of book that will keep you reading!
• ARC via Publisher
First, despite the fact that the summary makes it pretty clear exactly what sort of dark and disturbing secrets we can expect to read here, I’d kind of forgotten that these are secrets as written by Joyce Carol Oates. And in pure Oates fashion, they are offered in such a sinuous way that each and every chapter just ends up more and more of a gut punch. The novel hurts.
If you’re a content warning sort of a reader, consider yourself WARNED (caps fully intended) – this can be very hard to read.
It’s also intelligent, insidious, and an absolute page turner of a novel. Oates has a habit of giving us all the darkest parts of characters – the things you really don’t want to think about. And at 600+ pages, you’re going to think about those things…a lot.
The ending is satisfying. It’s right.
The book will stay with me. Not sure I’m thrilled about that, but it was definitely the kind of book that will keep you reading!
• ARC via Publisher
December 30, 2024
ARC for review. To be published June 17, 2025.
Four strong stars.
It’s 500+ pages long. But I love JCO and this sounds fascinating, so I’m in.
The disappearance of “charismatic, mercurial” teacher Francis Fox from Langhorne Academy, an elite boarding school in Weiland, NJ is big news throughout the town. Just before people realized he was gone his crashed car and an unidentifiable body were found below a drop off in a nature preserve near the town dump by Marius and Demetrius Healy, the two sons of a part-time janitor at the school
Detective Horace Zwender, a stoic, single-minded individual is investigating the case and he is charged with confirming the identity of the body and, then, determining who Francis Fox really was amidst his carefully constructed layers.
A number of female students (including a Healy relative), the head of school, the father of one of the students and others from the faculty and town are among those affected by Fox’s disappearance, and their devastation fans out further.
The book is clearly Oates’s LOLITA (a text discussed at length in the narrative) and, further, explores many different types of relationships between females and males. It is overlong; there are definitely sections that could be jettisoned with no effect on the story, and Francis is a bit one note; one wishes he were a bit less of a totally stereotyped villain, but if you enjoy Oates and her signature style, you are likely to like this. It took me a while to get through it but I enjoyed it.
Four strong stars.
It’s 500+ pages long. But I love JCO and this sounds fascinating, so I’m in.
The disappearance of “charismatic, mercurial” teacher Francis Fox from Langhorne Academy, an elite boarding school in Weiland, NJ is big news throughout the town. Just before people realized he was gone his crashed car and an unidentifiable body were found below a drop off in a nature preserve near the town dump by Marius and Demetrius Healy, the two sons of a part-time janitor at the school
Detective Horace Zwender, a stoic, single-minded individual is investigating the case and he is charged with confirming the identity of the body and, then, determining who Francis Fox really was amidst his carefully constructed layers.
A number of female students (including a Healy relative), the head of school, the father of one of the students and others from the faculty and town are among those affected by Fox’s disappearance, and their devastation fans out further.
The book is clearly Oates’s LOLITA (a text discussed at length in the narrative) and, further, explores many different types of relationships between females and males. It is overlong; there are definitely sections that could be jettisoned with no effect on the story, and Francis is a bit one note; one wishes he were a bit less of a totally stereotyped villain, but if you enjoy Oates and her signature style, you are likely to like this. It took me a while to get through it but I enjoyed it.
October 17, 2025
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2025...
“Qué lujo sentir que existe cierto propósito en ampliar tu conocimiento, tu conciencia. Sentir la pequeña emoción de la aventura, ponerse cómodo en la casa silenciosa para una tarde de lectura.
Pues, ¿qué es la lectura sino la disolución de lo meramente personal en lo impersonal, un triunfo de la concentración mental?”
Después de no sé cuantas obras leídas de la señora Oates, todavía me sigue maravillando cómo consigue sorprenderme, porque en lo que en cualquier otro autor podría resultar previsible en ella nunca lo es, y el secreto está en cómo se camufla bajo un aparente thriller o novela de “misterio” para escarbar casi siempre en lo más oscuro de la condición humana. Del mismo modo que hace dos años Babysitter me entusiasmó y me pareció de sus mejores novelas, la siguiente y del 2024, Carnicero, no me gustó demasiado e incluso confesé en su momento que llegó a aburrirme soberanamente. Pero siempre estoy en guardia con JCO, siempre espero sus últimas novelas ansiosamente porque sé de lo que es capaz; en Fox ha vuelto a entusiasmarme por cómo riza el rizo de la experimentación llegando a introducir varios niveles autorrefenciales en el sentido de que en su esencia y para mí (puede que solo para mí), es una novela que ante todo habla sobre la escritura, sobre la enorme capacidad que tenemos todos de contar historias, algunos mejor que otros, y de cómo podremos manipular a través de este talento. En este caso, JCO está demostrando casi continuamente durante las 700 y pico páginas que aquí no solo se está contando la historia de Francis Fox sino que está cuestionando continuamente quién la cuenta, como se puede construir un relato de la nada y a través de esta creación manipular, controlar, distorsionar, ejerciendo un poder absoluto, y no solo está hablando del protagonista a la hora de construir un relato, sino que convierte a, prácticamente cada una de las voces corales, en narradores no confiables. En un momento dado se produce un eclipse metaficcional que la hace explotar y la muta de novela de misterio con su correspondiente carga psicológica a texto que juega a experimentar sobre el acto de la escritura. Sabemos que metaficción es el resultado de una obra hablando de sí misma como ficción, o el autor queriendo que el lector sea consciente de que todo es ficción en un continuo proceso creativo, y realmente he terminado la novela con la impresión de que toda ella no deja de ser pura experimentación por parte de la Oates para escarbar en este proceso de la construcción de historias porque además nos está recordando que toda historia dependerá de quién la cuente, de esta forma el lector se encontrará sumergido en una especie de montaña rusa cambiante de perspectivas en la que que tendrá que participar activamente, pero todo esto bajo un misterio: un misterio que además llegado un punto se diluirá en pos de sus personajes y sus historias: Eunice Pfenning, Demetrius, Eunice Pfenning o su madre, Mary Ann Healy, Zwegler, Imogen..., conmovedores porque la Oates es una autora que sentirá una profunda ternura por sus personajes.
“Les dice, les asegura,que aprenderán a escribir en su clase. Aprenderán a pensar con claridad y fuerza. Aprenderán a observar. Aprenderán a dudar y a cuestionar. Aparenderán a ampliar su vocabulario al tiempo que adqieren la habilidad de escribir oraciones usando la menor cantidad de palabras posible y de la forma más efectiva.
Escribirán ensayos, elegirán proyectos, llevarán un diario personal para entregarlo al final del semestre:
-Todo ello obra original vuestra. Único y vuestro."
Francis Fox es un pedófilo depredador que se dedica a la docencia para tener un completo acceso a sus víctimas. Realmente es un encantador de serpientes, que va cambiando de piel a medida que va cambiando de escenario, osea, los diferentes institutos para los que trabajará, y de los que tendrá que salir por patas una vez que levante sospechas. "Francis sabe que es una debilidad humana que personas perfectamente inteligentes y razonables sucumban a la adulación si está se administra con destreza." A medida que va experimentando va refinando su técnica de camuflaje como los depredadores, así que la gran mayor parte de la novela se desarrollará en la elitista Academía Langhorne, que será un instituto privado “histórico” de niños ricos. Gran parte de esto ya se descubre en los tres primeros capítulos de la novela en los que además se habrán presentado la mayoría de sus personajes.
"Tan solo la sensación de que algo no estaba bien."
En este comienzo de novela se detalla el hallazgo de un cádaver en una charca de una reserva natural inundada, camino de senderistas y no lejos de esta Academia Langhorne. JCO no se anda con chiquitas y presenta el hallazgo del cádaver ya en este inicio, sobre todo para poder centrarse en lo que de verdad le interesa, en las historias que irán surgiendo a medida que se investigará si este cadáver pertenece o no al encantador y carismático profesor de literatura inglesa Francis Fox. A través de múltiples puntos de vistas, voces, incluidas las de Fox, en las que la Oates le hará protagonista de su punto de vista, le iremos conociendo en su habitat natural, pero es tan envolvente su relato, que llegaremos a olvidarnos por algún momento que Fox es un tipo acostumbrado a camelar, a encantar, a manipular: “Así pues, ha aprendido a ser cauteloso. En este nuevo entorno, en esta nueva vida (New Jersey), que es una tierra de nadie, un lugar de exilio que aprenderá a llamar su hogar."
“Condicionar a los demás para que piensen bien de nosotros, para que no quieran hacernos daño, para que, de algún modo, confundan ayudarnos a nosotros con ayudarse a sí mismos: Francis Fox ha cultivado esa estratagema durante años. Una sonrisa cálida, un apretón de manos, una expresión de ternura, escuchar con atención, o dar esa impresión. Todo es valioso."
Condicionar a los demás para gustarles: ese es el desafío de cualquier encuentro humano.
Condicionar a los demás para gustarles y así bloquear cualquier inclinación que tengan a encontrarte desagradable, a desconfiar de tí: ese es el desafío.”
Son tantos los temas que toca Oates que me da vértigo poder condensarlo así que no lo voy a hacer sino que lo que de verdad me interesa es salirme un poco de este argumento y centrarme sobre todo en lo que me interesa de esta novela prodigiosa, y es la literatura misma. Joyce Carol Oates convierte a su depredador en un profesor de literatura inglesa, así que iremos viendo el proceso de cómo se enseña, de cómo se usa y como esta docencia puede servir tanto para revelar la luz como para manipular. "Fox te halaga al fingir que es tu igual> ¡Qué caballeroso!" El uso que hace Fox de la literatura no busca despertar pensamiento critico sino manipular, controlar, seducir y sobre todo dominar. Fox es un intelectual encantador y carismático que no tiene enemigos, todos le adorarán y realmente funciona como un espejo de nuestra sociedad, porque a través de él, la Oates desenmascara el silencio de la comunidad cómplice que prefiere pasar de puntillas antes de arriesgar sus vidas confortables asentadas en poltronas con orejeras.
"Nuevos residentes adinerados compran propiedades históricas y las renuevan, a veces cambiándolas por completo, conservando solo los cimientos de piedra del s XVIII. Los precios de la vivienda suben en Longport, Avalon, Beach Haven, Wieland. A buen seguro los hijos de estos nuevos residentes no asistirán a colegios públicos locales, sino a la Academia Langhorne.
Pues él, H. Zwender proviene de ese entorno, del sur de New Jersey; antiguas familias que no han prosperado en el siglo XXI, dejadas atrás por la economía informática y tecnológica.
Cualquier cosa relacionada con ejecutivos de nuevas tecnologías y de farmacéuticas como los que trabajan para Bristol Myers Squibb, provoca calumnias y una especie de rabia ahogada por parte e los residentes."
Fox es una novela con uno de los comienzos más potentes escritos por la Oates, en apenas tres o cuatro capítulos durante las varias perspectivas del hallazgo del cadáver,, ha expuesto no solo a sus personajes centrales, sino el sistema de clases: la zona más rural y desestructurada víctima de los ejecutivos farmacéuticos y tecnológicos que han venido a invadir la zona subiendo el nivel de vida, sino además que convierte en protagonistas a algunos de estos ejecutivos y sus hijos, con lo que la novela acaba resultando una radiografía bestial de los más ricos exiliando de su habitat a los más pobres, y entremedias, tendremos esa clase social, la académica, que servirá punto de unión entre ambos mundos. En esta autora no hay absolutamente nada gratuito sino que usa este entorno de burguesía progresista para explorar la inseguridad y la falsedad de esta sociedad del bienestar que se va a pique ante el más mínimo problema en su entorno. No hay solo abuso por parte de un depredador sexual sino que precisamente la Oates sostiene que este abuso viene a simbolizar lo que es la falsedad de un progreso que hace aguas, el bienestar no es tal, bajo la fachada de estas mansiones restauradas, se esconden núcleos familiares frágiles y fácilmente manipulables.
"Se obligó entonces a hablar despacio y con calma. Tratando de no dar a entender que estaba demasiado preparada, que era ambiciosa. No estridente.
No femenina. Más claramente, aunque no de forma inquietante, feminista.
"Está decidida, con la tácita aprobación del consejo directivo de la Academia, a contratar a una mujer para el puesto, preferiblemente una joven de color o de minoría étnica subrepresentada en el profesorado Langhorne, que es un 100% "blanco.
(Tiene predilección por señalar "blanco", de esta manera, entre comillas como si se tratara de una curiosidad lingüistica o biológica)."
Hoy en día es muy habitual ver retratada la maternidad hasta el infinito y sin embargo, la paternidad es más bien obviada, pero Oates, como siempre nada contracorriente y se atreve con temas políticamente incorrectos o que no están muy de moda. En esta novela hace un retrato de una paternidad fragmentada y completamente desubicada que me han conmovido de verdad, Martin Pfenning, un ejecutivo en pleno proceso de separación, bloqueado ante una vida que creía tener segura y que se está derrumbando a pasos agigantados solo porque se ve incapaz de gestionar la soledad. No solo me ha conmovido el retrato que Joyce Carol Oates hace de este hombre, sino de otros hombres y mujeres que aparecen en la novela, en los que profundizará destacando sus luces y sus sombras.
“La esposa separada ha invitado al marido a cenar.
Siente un atisbo de esperanza. Pero Pfenning se avergüenza de esa esperanza. Para alguien que ha perdido a su familia se trata de un premio de consolación."
"¡Cuánto ha ocurrido!..., y en tan poco tiempo. Fue hace un momento cuando silenció la televisión. Hace una hora, dos horas. Pero la vida de Martín Pfenning, tan preciosa para él, tan rica y complicada, se ha convertido en una simple página arrancada de un cuaderno, arrugada en un puño, arrojada a un lado como basura."
No puedo extenderme más en una novela que me ha parecido inabarcable en los temas que retrata pero aquí volveremos a sus temas recurrentes de siempre: la fragilidad de la adolescencia y la mirada masculina “Siempre esa mirada peculiar en los rostros masculinos, como si no la vieran a ella, sino algo dentro de ella que ella misma desconocía y que no podía disimular”, el vacío moral en el que vivimos, el silencio que omite y que será de una violencia a veces más brutal que la violencia física, pero sobre todo la Oates explora aquí como pocas veces el mal y la psicología del poder. Para mí esta es una novela en la que esta autora experimenta sobre el arte de escribir, continuamente presente, continuamente haciendo hincapié en que debemos ser conscientes de esta ficción que puede metamorfosearse en autoficción a través de las autorrefencias. El secreto de esta novela está en lo bien estructurada que estará la tensión y como a través de esta estructura se van descubriendo capas y más capas hasta llegar a reflexionar sobre como los textos pueden moldear y transformar la realidad en la que vivimos. Una novela inmensa, envolvente, incómoda, cuyo final la hace mucho más grande.
Tengo que añadir que cuando leí Lolita hace un par de años pensé que hoy en día no se podría volver a publicar una novela con esa temática, con un depredador pedófilo que narrara tan abiertamente lo que se cocía dentro de su mente. Joyce Carol Oates lo ha hecho, la han publicado y además ha abierto la perspectiva a sus víctimas y su entorno. Turbadora y oscurísima Oates. “Fabulación. Una palabra mucho mejor que mentira."
“En el diario puedes escribir sobre cualquier cosa, Eunice: cosas personales, privadas, domésticas, pensamientos sobre el mundo, libros que has leído, secreto de tu casa, material censurado, de todo. En tu caso, te recomendaría explorar el mundo exterior: árboles, rios, pájaros. Das la impresión de estar prisionera, atrapada dentro de tu pequeño y duro cráneo. Tienes que salir al aire libre.
El señor Fox me dijo: Piérdete en la naturaleza, no te pueden encontrar a menos que estés perdida."
♫♫♫ Human - Rag'n'Bone Man ♫♫♫
“Qué lujo sentir que existe cierto propósito en ampliar tu conocimiento, tu conciencia. Sentir la pequeña emoción de la aventura, ponerse cómodo en la casa silenciosa para una tarde de lectura.
Pues, ¿qué es la lectura sino la disolución de lo meramente personal en lo impersonal, un triunfo de la concentración mental?”
Después de no sé cuantas obras leídas de la señora Oates, todavía me sigue maravillando cómo consigue sorprenderme, porque en lo que en cualquier otro autor podría resultar previsible en ella nunca lo es, y el secreto está en cómo se camufla bajo un aparente thriller o novela de “misterio” para escarbar casi siempre en lo más oscuro de la condición humana. Del mismo modo que hace dos años Babysitter me entusiasmó y me pareció de sus mejores novelas, la siguiente y del 2024, Carnicero, no me gustó demasiado e incluso confesé en su momento que llegó a aburrirme soberanamente. Pero siempre estoy en guardia con JCO, siempre espero sus últimas novelas ansiosamente porque sé de lo que es capaz; en Fox ha vuelto a entusiasmarme por cómo riza el rizo de la experimentación llegando a introducir varios niveles autorrefenciales en el sentido de que en su esencia y para mí (puede que solo para mí), es una novela que ante todo habla sobre la escritura, sobre la enorme capacidad que tenemos todos de contar historias, algunos mejor que otros, y de cómo podremos manipular a través de este talento. En este caso, JCO está demostrando casi continuamente durante las 700 y pico páginas que aquí no solo se está contando la historia de Francis Fox sino que está cuestionando continuamente quién la cuenta, como se puede construir un relato de la nada y a través de esta creación manipular, controlar, distorsionar, ejerciendo un poder absoluto, y no solo está hablando del protagonista a la hora de construir un relato, sino que convierte a, prácticamente cada una de las voces corales, en narradores no confiables. En un momento dado se produce un eclipse metaficcional que la hace explotar y la muta de novela de misterio con su correspondiente carga psicológica a texto que juega a experimentar sobre el acto de la escritura. Sabemos que metaficción es el resultado de una obra hablando de sí misma como ficción, o el autor queriendo que el lector sea consciente de que todo es ficción en un continuo proceso creativo, y realmente he terminado la novela con la impresión de que toda ella no deja de ser pura experimentación por parte de la Oates para escarbar en este proceso de la construcción de historias porque además nos está recordando que toda historia dependerá de quién la cuente, de esta forma el lector se encontrará sumergido en una especie de montaña rusa cambiante de perspectivas en la que que tendrá que participar activamente, pero todo esto bajo un misterio: un misterio que además llegado un punto se diluirá en pos de sus personajes y sus historias: Eunice Pfenning, Demetrius, Eunice Pfenning o su madre, Mary Ann Healy, Zwegler, Imogen..., conmovedores porque la Oates es una autora que sentirá una profunda ternura por sus personajes.
“Les dice, les asegura,que aprenderán a escribir en su clase. Aprenderán a pensar con claridad y fuerza. Aprenderán a observar. Aprenderán a dudar y a cuestionar. Aparenderán a ampliar su vocabulario al tiempo que adqieren la habilidad de escribir oraciones usando la menor cantidad de palabras posible y de la forma más efectiva.
Escribirán ensayos, elegirán proyectos, llevarán un diario personal para entregarlo al final del semestre:
-Todo ello obra original vuestra. Único y vuestro."
Francis Fox es un pedófilo depredador que se dedica a la docencia para tener un completo acceso a sus víctimas. Realmente es un encantador de serpientes, que va cambiando de piel a medida que va cambiando de escenario, osea, los diferentes institutos para los que trabajará, y de los que tendrá que salir por patas una vez que levante sospechas. "Francis sabe que es una debilidad humana que personas perfectamente inteligentes y razonables sucumban a la adulación si está se administra con destreza." A medida que va experimentando va refinando su técnica de camuflaje como los depredadores, así que la gran mayor parte de la novela se desarrollará en la elitista Academía Langhorne, que será un instituto privado “histórico” de niños ricos. Gran parte de esto ya se descubre en los tres primeros capítulos de la novela en los que además se habrán presentado la mayoría de sus personajes.
"Tan solo la sensación de que algo no estaba bien."
En este comienzo de novela se detalla el hallazgo de un cádaver en una charca de una reserva natural inundada, camino de senderistas y no lejos de esta Academia Langhorne. JCO no se anda con chiquitas y presenta el hallazgo del cádaver ya en este inicio, sobre todo para poder centrarse en lo que de verdad le interesa, en las historias que irán surgiendo a medida que se investigará si este cadáver pertenece o no al encantador y carismático profesor de literatura inglesa Francis Fox. A través de múltiples puntos de vistas, voces, incluidas las de Fox, en las que la Oates le hará protagonista de su punto de vista, le iremos conociendo en su habitat natural, pero es tan envolvente su relato, que llegaremos a olvidarnos por algún momento que Fox es un tipo acostumbrado a camelar, a encantar, a manipular: “Así pues, ha aprendido a ser cauteloso. En este nuevo entorno, en esta nueva vida (New Jersey), que es una tierra de nadie, un lugar de exilio que aprenderá a llamar su hogar."
“Condicionar a los demás para que piensen bien de nosotros, para que no quieran hacernos daño, para que, de algún modo, confundan ayudarnos a nosotros con ayudarse a sí mismos: Francis Fox ha cultivado esa estratagema durante años. Una sonrisa cálida, un apretón de manos, una expresión de ternura, escuchar con atención, o dar esa impresión. Todo es valioso."
Condicionar a los demás para gustarles: ese es el desafío de cualquier encuentro humano.
Condicionar a los demás para gustarles y así bloquear cualquier inclinación que tengan a encontrarte desagradable, a desconfiar de tí: ese es el desafío.”
Son tantos los temas que toca Oates que me da vértigo poder condensarlo así que no lo voy a hacer sino que lo que de verdad me interesa es salirme un poco de este argumento y centrarme sobre todo en lo que me interesa de esta novela prodigiosa, y es la literatura misma. Joyce Carol Oates convierte a su depredador en un profesor de literatura inglesa, así que iremos viendo el proceso de cómo se enseña, de cómo se usa y como esta docencia puede servir tanto para revelar la luz como para manipular. "Fox te halaga al fingir que es tu igual> ¡Qué caballeroso!" El uso que hace Fox de la literatura no busca despertar pensamiento critico sino manipular, controlar, seducir y sobre todo dominar. Fox es un intelectual encantador y carismático que no tiene enemigos, todos le adorarán y realmente funciona como un espejo de nuestra sociedad, porque a través de él, la Oates desenmascara el silencio de la comunidad cómplice que prefiere pasar de puntillas antes de arriesgar sus vidas confortables asentadas en poltronas con orejeras.
"Nuevos residentes adinerados compran propiedades históricas y las renuevan, a veces cambiándolas por completo, conservando solo los cimientos de piedra del s XVIII. Los precios de la vivienda suben en Longport, Avalon, Beach Haven, Wieland. A buen seguro los hijos de estos nuevos residentes no asistirán a colegios públicos locales, sino a la Academia Langhorne.
Pues él, H. Zwender proviene de ese entorno, del sur de New Jersey; antiguas familias que no han prosperado en el siglo XXI, dejadas atrás por la economía informática y tecnológica.
Cualquier cosa relacionada con ejecutivos de nuevas tecnologías y de farmacéuticas como los que trabajan para Bristol Myers Squibb, provoca calumnias y una especie de rabia ahogada por parte e los residentes."
Fox es una novela con uno de los comienzos más potentes escritos por la Oates, en apenas tres o cuatro capítulos durante las varias perspectivas del hallazgo del cadáver,, ha expuesto no solo a sus personajes centrales, sino el sistema de clases: la zona más rural y desestructurada víctima de los ejecutivos farmacéuticos y tecnológicos que han venido a invadir la zona subiendo el nivel de vida, sino además que convierte en protagonistas a algunos de estos ejecutivos y sus hijos, con lo que la novela acaba resultando una radiografía bestial de los más ricos exiliando de su habitat a los más pobres, y entremedias, tendremos esa clase social, la académica, que servirá punto de unión entre ambos mundos. En esta autora no hay absolutamente nada gratuito sino que usa este entorno de burguesía progresista para explorar la inseguridad y la falsedad de esta sociedad del bienestar que se va a pique ante el más mínimo problema en su entorno. No hay solo abuso por parte de un depredador sexual sino que precisamente la Oates sostiene que este abuso viene a simbolizar lo que es la falsedad de un progreso que hace aguas, el bienestar no es tal, bajo la fachada de estas mansiones restauradas, se esconden núcleos familiares frágiles y fácilmente manipulables.
"Se obligó entonces a hablar despacio y con calma. Tratando de no dar a entender que estaba demasiado preparada, que era ambiciosa. No estridente.
No femenina. Más claramente, aunque no de forma inquietante, feminista.
"Está decidida, con la tácita aprobación del consejo directivo de la Academia, a contratar a una mujer para el puesto, preferiblemente una joven de color o de minoría étnica subrepresentada en el profesorado Langhorne, que es un 100% "blanco.
(Tiene predilección por señalar "blanco", de esta manera, entre comillas como si se tratara de una curiosidad lingüistica o biológica)."
Hoy en día es muy habitual ver retratada la maternidad hasta el infinito y sin embargo, la paternidad es más bien obviada, pero Oates, como siempre nada contracorriente y se atreve con temas políticamente incorrectos o que no están muy de moda. En esta novela hace un retrato de una paternidad fragmentada y completamente desubicada que me han conmovido de verdad, Martin Pfenning, un ejecutivo en pleno proceso de separación, bloqueado ante una vida que creía tener segura y que se está derrumbando a pasos agigantados solo porque se ve incapaz de gestionar la soledad. No solo me ha conmovido el retrato que Joyce Carol Oates hace de este hombre, sino de otros hombres y mujeres que aparecen en la novela, en los que profundizará destacando sus luces y sus sombras.
“La esposa separada ha invitado al marido a cenar.
Siente un atisbo de esperanza. Pero Pfenning se avergüenza de esa esperanza. Para alguien que ha perdido a su familia se trata de un premio de consolación."
"¡Cuánto ha ocurrido!..., y en tan poco tiempo. Fue hace un momento cuando silenció la televisión. Hace una hora, dos horas. Pero la vida de Martín Pfenning, tan preciosa para él, tan rica y complicada, se ha convertido en una simple página arrancada de un cuaderno, arrugada en un puño, arrojada a un lado como basura."
No puedo extenderme más en una novela que me ha parecido inabarcable en los temas que retrata pero aquí volveremos a sus temas recurrentes de siempre: la fragilidad de la adolescencia y la mirada masculina “Siempre esa mirada peculiar en los rostros masculinos, como si no la vieran a ella, sino algo dentro de ella que ella misma desconocía y que no podía disimular”, el vacío moral en el que vivimos, el silencio que omite y que será de una violencia a veces más brutal que la violencia física, pero sobre todo la Oates explora aquí como pocas veces el mal y la psicología del poder. Para mí esta es una novela en la que esta autora experimenta sobre el arte de escribir, continuamente presente, continuamente haciendo hincapié en que debemos ser conscientes de esta ficción que puede metamorfosearse en autoficción a través de las autorrefencias. El secreto de esta novela está en lo bien estructurada que estará la tensión y como a través de esta estructura se van descubriendo capas y más capas hasta llegar a reflexionar sobre como los textos pueden moldear y transformar la realidad en la que vivimos. Una novela inmensa, envolvente, incómoda, cuyo final la hace mucho más grande.
Tengo que añadir que cuando leí Lolita hace un par de años pensé que hoy en día no se podría volver a publicar una novela con esa temática, con un depredador pedófilo que narrara tan abiertamente lo que se cocía dentro de su mente. Joyce Carol Oates lo ha hecho, la han publicado y además ha abierto la perspectiva a sus víctimas y su entorno. Turbadora y oscurísima Oates. “Fabulación. Una palabra mucho mejor que mentira."
“En el diario puedes escribir sobre cualquier cosa, Eunice: cosas personales, privadas, domésticas, pensamientos sobre el mundo, libros que has leído, secreto de tu casa, material censurado, de todo. En tu caso, te recomendaría explorar el mundo exterior: árboles, rios, pájaros. Das la impresión de estar prisionera, atrapada dentro de tu pequeño y duro cráneo. Tienes que salir al aire libre.
El señor Fox me dijo: Piérdete en la naturaleza, no te pueden encontrar a menos que estés perdida."
♫♫♫ Human - Rag'n'Bone Man ♫♫♫
June 27, 2025
Once again, how does she do it? At 80+, Joyce Carol Oates tackles yet another genre, and NAILS it. But with her trademark depth of character and plotting that many have tried to emulate. A body is discovered early on, and the players are introduced with enough ambiguity that anyone could have done it. I must remark that I'm at an age where lengthy books are very challenging so I resort to audio when necessary, and here there is a remarkable cast of readers who provide theatrical excellence.
June 11, 2025
I was special. But no one except Mr Fox had ever spoken such words aloud to me.
In many ways, this reads to me like JCO's riposte to Nabokov's Lolita, a book name-checked in the text but which Mr Fox rejects. The implication is that he can't bear the mirror it holds up to his own predatory, exploitative nature as a 'charismatic' middle school teacher. But one of the things about Lolita is that we're in the head of Humbert Humbert and so we have to see Lo through his skin-crawlingly sexual gaze - a place I couldn't bear to be when I tried re-reading the book in the last few years. JCO takes her time but she eventually overturns that power structure of who owns the narrative. Without giving away spoilers, this extends the story we know and turns it into a different direction. But, being JCO, there's no easy 'happy' ending:
Despite - eventually - seeing what this book does, it feels overlong with the prose being more slap-dash than JCO's usual controlled precision. This feels like it needs another focused edit and has been published too early. That said, I loved the section written from the point of view of someone's dog joyously defying her human! And the denouement is structurally interesting. But JCO has spent her career writing about how harsh the world is for girls and women; in writing about power differentials and how they exploit the vulnerable - other books of hers have made the same points as this one more forcefully and elegantly, and in fewer pages. Still, we can't have too many books alerting us to the predators who operate below the radar and the systems that they exploit for cover. JCO's renewed focus on the victims and a sense of agency, however perverted, make this worth a read despite the flaws.
Many thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
November 28, 2025
Magistral. Inteligente. Devastadora.
No es un thriller al uso, es una reflexión literaria sobre las circunstancias de violencia, poder, redención y responsabilidad moral.
La estructura es muy fragmentaria, pero todas las partes están ensambladas perfectamente en el conjunto, de forma coherente con lo que narra: hay muchos puntos de vista para ofrecer múltiples perspectivas (el propio Fox, las víctimas, compañeros del colegio, el detective, etc.), y el conjunto de todas ellas viene a ser un magnífico estudio psicológico y social.
Va desgranando con gran intensidad la culpabilidad, la memoria y la justicia, a partir de un retrato muy realista de un pederasta espeluznante.
Además de exponer las circunstancias criminales y la personalidad de los personajes (criminal y víctimas, entre otros), lo sobresaliente es cómo refleja perfectamente el entorno, la sociedad, el funcionamiento de las instituciones, las clases sociales y el modo de vida que permiten esas circunstancias. Toda una crítica sociológica y psicológica del entorno que narra.
Y ello en una lectura que para mí ha sido muy amena, abrumadora, en ocasiones aterradora, de ritmo muy ágil, y sobre todo interesantísima en la perspectiva de los personajes hasta el mismísimo final, con un epílogo que me ha parecido brillante, muy simbólico como cierre emocional de la historia, evidenciando que todo depende mucho de quien lo cuenta, y a modo de guinda final sobre la tarta que es esta novela ha puesto un toque delicioso metaliterario.
No es un thriller al uso, es una reflexión literaria sobre las circunstancias de violencia, poder, redención y responsabilidad moral.
La estructura es muy fragmentaria, pero todas las partes están ensambladas perfectamente en el conjunto, de forma coherente con lo que narra: hay muchos puntos de vista para ofrecer múltiples perspectivas (el propio Fox, las víctimas, compañeros del colegio, el detective, etc.), y el conjunto de todas ellas viene a ser un magnífico estudio psicológico y social.
Va desgranando con gran intensidad la culpabilidad, la memoria y la justicia, a partir de un retrato muy realista de un pederasta espeluznante.
Además de exponer las circunstancias criminales y la personalidad de los personajes (criminal y víctimas, entre otros), lo sobresaliente es cómo refleja perfectamente el entorno, la sociedad, el funcionamiento de las instituciones, las clases sociales y el modo de vida que permiten esas circunstancias. Toda una crítica sociológica y psicológica del entorno que narra.
Y ello en una lectura que para mí ha sido muy amena, abrumadora, en ocasiones aterradora, de ritmo muy ágil, y sobre todo interesantísima en la perspectiva de los personajes hasta el mismísimo final, con un epílogo que me ha parecido brillante, muy simbólico como cierre emocional de la historia, evidenciando que todo depende mucho de quien lo cuenta, y a modo de guinda final sobre la tarta que es esta novela ha puesto un toque delicioso metaliterario.
September 13, 2025
“Fox”, by Joyce Carol Oates, probably the first whodunnit by this author.
5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
TW: pedophilia, suicide, mental health
This was my second book by this author (I have only read “Carthage”) and what an impressive and unsettling novel this is!
The story is very unpleasant and the topic is a tough one, but the writing is terrific, and the development of the story was enthralling, even though the main character was repulsive and unreliable, a monster.
During the first 6% I wasn’t sure if this book was going to work for me, but after that I just wanted to keep reading. I needed to know who killed the monster.
The story is written in the third person, using an intimate, sweeping style and interweaving multiple points of view to create a profound and mysterious narrative.
The way the storytelling unfolded was as if it was written in first person, or perhaps it was a combination of both, especially when listening to the audiobook, because I felt that I was inside the monster’s head as well as inside of the head of the other characters. The epilogue was a combination of 2nd and 1st person. Quite interesting and shows how talented the writer is.
The building of the characters was excellent and there are multiple POV. The timeline structure was not confusing.
The author did not cut corners. Some details were very disturbing and uncomfortable.
And the conclusion had a twist that I didn’t not see coming. It was touching and so satisfying, and probably one of the best endings that I have read lately.
From the blurb: “A hypnotic, galloping tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim vs. predator, Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox illuminates the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands.”
This is definitely not a book for everyone.
The author is currently 87 years old. I wonder how long it took her to write this book.
I read while simultaneously listening to the superb audiobook. I highly recommend it.
Hardcover (Hogarth): 672 pages
Audiobook (unabridged) narrated by Max Meyers, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Kirsten Potter, Fred Berman, Matt Godfrey, Gail Shalan, Rebecca Lowman, Rachel L. Jacobs, Eunice Wong, Ina Barrón: 25 hours (normal speed)
5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
TW: pedophilia, suicide, mental health
This was my second book by this author (I have only read “Carthage”) and what an impressive and unsettling novel this is!
The story is very unpleasant and the topic is a tough one, but the writing is terrific, and the development of the story was enthralling, even though the main character was repulsive and unreliable, a monster.
During the first 6% I wasn’t sure if this book was going to work for me, but after that I just wanted to keep reading. I needed to know who killed the monster.
The story is written in the third person, using an intimate, sweeping style and interweaving multiple points of view to create a profound and mysterious narrative.
The way the storytelling unfolded was as if it was written in first person, or perhaps it was a combination of both, especially when listening to the audiobook, because I felt that I was inside the monster’s head as well as inside of the head of the other characters. The epilogue was a combination of 2nd and 1st person. Quite interesting and shows how talented the writer is.
The building of the characters was excellent and there are multiple POV. The timeline structure was not confusing.
The author did not cut corners. Some details were very disturbing and uncomfortable.
And the conclusion had a twist that I didn’t not see coming. It was touching and so satisfying, and probably one of the best endings that I have read lately.
From the blurb: “A hypnotic, galloping tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim vs. predator, Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox illuminates the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands.”
This is definitely not a book for everyone.
The author is currently 87 years old. I wonder how long it took her to write this book.
I read while simultaneously listening to the superb audiobook. I highly recommend it.
Hardcover (Hogarth): 672 pages
Audiobook (unabridged) narrated by Max Meyers, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Kirsten Potter, Fred Berman, Matt Godfrey, Gail Shalan, Rebecca Lowman, Rachel L. Jacobs, Eunice Wong, Ina Barrón: 25 hours (normal speed)
May 14, 2025
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC! This novel releases in June.
Described by Joyce Carol Oates as her first whodunnit novel, Fox is a literary mystery with the brutalized corpse of a popular middle school English teacher—discovered by locals near his wrecked car in a ravine, deep in the Jersey woods—at its narrative center. Francis Fox. Who would want to kill him? Was he killed, or was it suicide? A drunken accident?
Over 700 pages JCO plunges the reader into the twisted psychology of Fox, as well as the young students he manipulates, the girl students he preys on—his “kittens” to his “Mr. Tongue”—all of this Oates paints in detail, unafraid of rubbing the reader’s face in it. Broken families, sexual trauma, brutalities and paranoia and suicidal fantasy: explored by way of a big cast of characters: creations with complexities in which lesser writers would get lost. And how did she pull off such a twist in the last 2% of the novel? And to see such a twist pulled off brilliantly, as this one is. Sublime. The whodunnit, an art form hard to successfully pull off, but Oates makes it look easy!
Who am I but a massive Joyce Carol Oates fanboy. It’s rare she misses the mark with me, though it has happened. Fox is this writer doing what she does best, as only she can. Long live JCO.
Described by Joyce Carol Oates as her first whodunnit novel, Fox is a literary mystery with the brutalized corpse of a popular middle school English teacher—discovered by locals near his wrecked car in a ravine, deep in the Jersey woods—at its narrative center. Francis Fox. Who would want to kill him? Was he killed, or was it suicide? A drunken accident?
Over 700 pages JCO plunges the reader into the twisted psychology of Fox, as well as the young students he manipulates, the girl students he preys on—his “kittens” to his “Mr. Tongue”—all of this Oates paints in detail, unafraid of rubbing the reader’s face in it. Broken families, sexual trauma, brutalities and paranoia and suicidal fantasy: explored by way of a big cast of characters: creations with complexities in which lesser writers would get lost. And how did she pull off such a twist in the last 2% of the novel? And to see such a twist pulled off brilliantly, as this one is. Sublime. The whodunnit, an art form hard to successfully pull off, but Oates makes it look easy!
Who am I but a massive Joyce Carol Oates fanboy. It’s rare she misses the mark with me, though it has happened. Fox is this writer doing what she does best, as only she can. Long live JCO.
June 19, 2025
I know that Joyce Carol Oates is a beloved author and famous for her work, but this is the first book of hers that I have read. I had been meaning to check out one of her books so this was my opportunity. This is her first whodunnit type book.
Description:
Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community, including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy, begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.
A hypnotic, galloping tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim vs. predator, Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox illuminates the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands. A character as magnetically diabolical as Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and Vladimir Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, Francis Fox enchants and manipulates nearly everyone around him, until at last he meets someone he can’t outfox. Written in Oates’s trademark intimate, sweeping style, and interweaving multiple points of view, Fox is a triumph of craftsmanship and artistry, a novel as profound as it is propulsive, as moving as it is full of mystery.
My Thoughts:
Who is Francis Fox? This book takes you on a deep dive into the person and his motivations, his experiences. He gave me the creeps. The Langhorne Academy was well respected and seemed like such a safe place for children. The students loved Mr. Fox and he was a respected teacher. But, he has dark secrets they don't know about. His disappearance and suspected death is a mystery, and his secrets are revealed when the police start investigating. There are many themes in this book, and I won't reveal them as I don't want to influence the reader, but let's just say that many are disturbing. The book is rather long at over 700 pages, but will keep you reading and hold your attention if you can get past the slow first chapter or so. The ending was such a surprise it was shocking. This is a great piece of literary fiction.
Thanks to Random House | Hogarth through Netgalley for an advance copy.
Description:
Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community, including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy, begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.
A hypnotic, galloping tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim vs. predator, Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox illuminates the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands. A character as magnetically diabolical as Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and Vladimir Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, Francis Fox enchants and manipulates nearly everyone around him, until at last he meets someone he can’t outfox. Written in Oates’s trademark intimate, sweeping style, and interweaving multiple points of view, Fox is a triumph of craftsmanship and artistry, a novel as profound as it is propulsive, as moving as it is full of mystery.
My Thoughts:
Who is Francis Fox? This book takes you on a deep dive into the person and his motivations, his experiences. He gave me the creeps. The Langhorne Academy was well respected and seemed like such a safe place for children. The students loved Mr. Fox and he was a respected teacher. But, he has dark secrets they don't know about. His disappearance and suspected death is a mystery, and his secrets are revealed when the police start investigating. There are many themes in this book, and I won't reveal them as I don't want to influence the reader, but let's just say that many are disturbing. The book is rather long at over 700 pages, but will keep you reading and hold your attention if you can get past the slow first chapter or so. The ending was such a surprise it was shocking. This is a great piece of literary fiction.
Thanks to Random House | Hogarth through Netgalley for an advance copy.
June 25, 2025
Fox is, in many ways, exactly what you'd expect from Joyce Carol Oates: provocative, disturbing, morally ambiguous. For me, this callback to Lolita was less about art and more about endurance testing. Getting through this one was a slog.
The story centers on Francis Fox, a middle school teacher with an obsession with prepubescent girls. And yes, it's every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds. I wouldn't exactly call Oates' depiction of sexual abuse graphic, but it's close. She gives us way more than enough detail to create a vomit-inducing mental picture. Fox's obsession with his victims, as well as the grooming and psychological abuse he inflicts on them, are laid out in enough detail to be suffocating. It's relentless and sickening.
That could be the point, of course -- the sickening nature of the subject matter. No matter how literary the framing, the story is no doubt meant to be both horrifying and fascinating. For me, it was just exhausting. If I hadn't gotten an eARC of this one in exchange for a review, there's no way I would have finished it.
I kept reading partly because I'd heard there was a twist at the end that made the whole thing worth it. It did not. The twist landed with a dull thud, and did not justify the grotesque journey I'd just been subjected to.
I read a lot of Joyce Carol Oates in the process of earning an English Literature degree, so her writing style and quirks aren't new to me. But good lord, this one contains some annoying tics. Oates seems to have developed an aversion to pronouns. The headmistress of the school, whose name is Paige, is referred to as "P. Cady" over and over and over and OVER AND OVER. Not "she" or "Paige." Almost always "P. Cady." I felt like I was in a bad sequel to Finding Nemo -- "P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney." The squirmy nickname Fox has for his victims, "Little Kitten," was so grating and cringe I almost put the book down just for that. And don't get me started on his references to Mr. Tongue . If Oates was trying to get under my skin, I guess it worked, but not in a way that left me impressed.
I'm sure some people will say this book is a raw look at monstrousness, or a subversion of the predator/victim narrative, or some other English-major-sounding stuff. But for me it seems like less a daring work of fiction and more a deeply unpleasant one that mistakes discomfort for depth.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book.
The story centers on Francis Fox, a middle school teacher with an obsession with prepubescent girls. And yes, it's every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds. I wouldn't exactly call Oates' depiction of sexual abuse graphic, but it's close. She gives us way more than enough detail to create a vomit-inducing mental picture. Fox's obsession with his victims, as well as the grooming and psychological abuse he inflicts on them, are laid out in enough detail to be suffocating. It's relentless and sickening.
That could be the point, of course -- the sickening nature of the subject matter. No matter how literary the framing, the story is no doubt meant to be both horrifying and fascinating. For me, it was just exhausting. If I hadn't gotten an eARC of this one in exchange for a review, there's no way I would have finished it.
I kept reading partly because I'd heard there was a twist at the end that made the whole thing worth it. It did not. The twist landed with a dull thud, and did not justify the grotesque journey I'd just been subjected to.
I read a lot of Joyce Carol Oates in the process of earning an English Literature degree, so her writing style and quirks aren't new to me. But good lord, this one contains some annoying tics. Oates seems to have developed an aversion to pronouns. The headmistress of the school, whose name is Paige, is referred to as "P. Cady" over and over and over and OVER AND OVER. Not "she" or "Paige." Almost always "P. Cady." I felt like I was in a bad sequel to Finding Nemo -- "P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney." The squirmy nickname Fox has for his victims, "Little Kitten," was so grating and cringe I almost put the book down just for that. And don't get me started on his references to Mr. Tongue . If Oates was trying to get under my skin, I guess it worked, but not in a way that left me impressed.
I'm sure some people will say this book is a raw look at monstrousness, or a subversion of the predator/victim narrative, or some other English-major-sounding stuff. But for me it seems like less a daring work of fiction and more a deeply unpleasant one that mistakes discomfort for depth.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book.
July 2, 2025
Absolutely brilliant. Possibly the most brilliant, multi-faceted literary thriller / suspense novel ever.
Francis Fox, a new English teacher at Langhorne Academy, is nothing but charm and affability. When his car is found submerged and his body is discovered, local law enforcement must look for the truth about Mr. Fox. But behind his most stalwart supporters, particularly the students, there are those who question his enigmatic biography and his amiable nature.
Oates has penned one of the most mesmerizing, propulsive novels I've read in a long time — maybe ever. A master of her craft, Oates brings so much into Fox — never overwhelming the plot, the characters, or the reader — but steadily and surely laying the groundwork for an intricate, Gordian knot of a story.
A difficult novel to discuss, particularly without giving anything away, Oates plays around with a lot of themes. Secrecy, identity, accountability, obsession, revulsion — there is almost no aspect of human nature that she doesn't cover. As the novel continues to unfold, and more layers are worked into the story — I found myself unable to put the book down. This would be a great book to read, discuss, and dissect. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.
P.S. As much as I'd love to say to go into this one blind (as I did), I must admit that the darkest chapters are very dark (they must be, if I notice, after all). So reader, do thy own research before diving into this one headfirst.
Francis Fox, a new English teacher at Langhorne Academy, is nothing but charm and affability. When his car is found submerged and his body is discovered, local law enforcement must look for the truth about Mr. Fox. But behind his most stalwart supporters, particularly the students, there are those who question his enigmatic biography and his amiable nature.
Oates has penned one of the most mesmerizing, propulsive novels I've read in a long time — maybe ever. A master of her craft, Oates brings so much into Fox — never overwhelming the plot, the characters, or the reader — but steadily and surely laying the groundwork for an intricate, Gordian knot of a story.
A difficult novel to discuss, particularly without giving anything away, Oates plays around with a lot of themes. Secrecy, identity, accountability, obsession, revulsion — there is almost no aspect of human nature that she doesn't cover. As the novel continues to unfold, and more layers are worked into the story — I found myself unable to put the book down. This would be a great book to read, discuss, and dissect. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.
P.S. As much as I'd love to say to go into this one blind (as I did), I must admit that the darkest chapters are very dark (they must be, if I notice, after all). So reader, do thy own research before diving into this one headfirst.
July 10, 2025
One of those books that, no matter how many days I ruminate first, I just don’t think I’ll come up with words to describe.
Oates, obviously an American literary legend, is in something like her late eighties? And whipped out this completely propulsive, brick of a literary who-dunnit thriller/commentary on aesthetic ethics/political protest piece.
The writing, from the first chapter (which we experience from the perspective of an actual dog) is beautifully rendered. She does a sort of stream-of-consciousness mixed with live action, film-like present tense narration that is pretty incredible.
But perhaps the most important thing to say in this review is that if you couldn’t stomach Lolita, you shouldn’t try this book, which functions as something of a reprise of/answer to Nabokov’s masterwork. There are some truly dark, graphic moments—I was practically holding my Kindle at arms length at times. But I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that justice and goodness do prevail in the end.
I removed a star because I thought some parts were a little bit over-drawn, which made things seem kitschy at times. But honestly the writing is pretty near perfect.
Oates, obviously an American literary legend, is in something like her late eighties? And whipped out this completely propulsive, brick of a literary who-dunnit thriller/commentary on aesthetic ethics/political protest piece.
The writing, from the first chapter (which we experience from the perspective of an actual dog) is beautifully rendered. She does a sort of stream-of-consciousness mixed with live action, film-like present tense narration that is pretty incredible.
But perhaps the most important thing to say in this review is that if you couldn’t stomach Lolita, you shouldn’t try this book, which functions as something of a reprise of/answer to Nabokov’s masterwork. There are some truly dark, graphic moments—I was practically holding my Kindle at arms length at times. But I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that justice and goodness do prevail in the end.
I removed a star because I thought some parts were a little bit over-drawn, which made things seem kitschy at times. But honestly the writing is pretty near perfect.
July 8, 2025
my goodness
November 2, 2025
Joyce Carol Oates flaunts her literary prowess in this modern Lolita. She delves into the mind of a predator and his middle school victims. The character development is impeccable. I found the story very disturbing and difficult to read. Crimes against children are very difficult for me to read. This is very well-written but not for the faint of heart or those who would be triggered by sexual crimes against children. The dark academia setting makes it the perfect time of year to read.
January 13, 2026
Oates might be one of the best authors of character voice and I have only read this one book by her.
A dark tomb following the effects of a predatory English teacher, Fox, at an elite New Jersey boarding school who manipulates everyone around him until he disappears.
What I found most interesting is how Fox justifies his actions to himself. He isn’t a predator. He is a caring teacher who everyone adores.
This is a brave undertaking of the author. Not only do get perspectives from Fox, as well as from his ‘kittens’ (the young girls), mothers and fathers who all have a very different relationship with each other and their children.
Through this, we get to see community complicity, whether this is by manipulation, to hold onto reputation or dignity, or because ignorance is easier.
I do think this was way too long. It was repetitive, especially being in Fox’s head. It gets across the obsession, but it also gets tiring as, after a certain point, it feels unneeded.
The reveal was obvious and unsatisfying. In fact, the entire plot wasn’t that gripping concerning the subject matter.
However, like I said at the start, the character work is incredible. You really get a feel of the characters with just a chapter in their head.
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A dark tomb following the effects of a predatory English teacher, Fox, at an elite New Jersey boarding school who manipulates everyone around him until he disappears.
What I found most interesting is how Fox justifies his actions to himself. He isn’t a predator. He is a caring teacher who everyone adores.
This is a brave undertaking of the author. Not only do get perspectives from Fox, as well as from his ‘kittens’ (the young girls), mothers and fathers who all have a very different relationship with each other and their children.
Through this, we get to see community complicity, whether this is by manipulation, to hold onto reputation or dignity, or because ignorance is easier.
I do think this was way too long. It was repetitive, especially being in Fox’s head. It gets across the obsession, but it also gets tiring as, after a certain point, it feels unneeded.
The reveal was obvious and unsatisfying. In fact, the entire plot wasn’t that gripping concerning the subject matter.
However, like I said at the start, the character work is incredible. You really get a feel of the characters with just a chapter in their head.
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October 23, 2025
3.5 Stars
Francis Fox has just been employed at the prestigious Langhorne Academy. He is a charismatic, charming English teacher that all the girls are enamored with. Francis Fox is also infatuated with the girls. Not long after beginning his job, his car is found in a ravine along with an unidentified body presumed to be him. Detective Zwender is investigating the accident and whether a crime has been committed. The further he investigates the more disturbing details arise.
This was such a difficult book to read on two different fronts. The topic in itself and the main male character Francis Fox are both nauseating. A good portion of the novel is told through his viewpoint, and quite honestly he is a vile human. Secondly, the author’s writing style is very unique and worked for most of the book, but when we got to the second half of the novel, the focus became more on the investigation and it kind of became nuanced and dull. I think maybe if it had been cut down by about 100 pages that would’ve helped. While I think it worked reading from Fox’s perspective, it didn’t work as well for me from the detectives perspective. There was just something about Zwender that didn’t click with me, he just didn’t seem like a detective.
Due to the subject matter, this novel will certainly not be for everybody, but I do appreciate the unique approach the author took. Diving into the mind of somebody like Francis Fox is definitely a disturbing read.
Francis Fox has just been employed at the prestigious Langhorne Academy. He is a charismatic, charming English teacher that all the girls are enamored with. Francis Fox is also infatuated with the girls. Not long after beginning his job, his car is found in a ravine along with an unidentified body presumed to be him. Detective Zwender is investigating the accident and whether a crime has been committed. The further he investigates the more disturbing details arise.
This was such a difficult book to read on two different fronts. The topic in itself and the main male character Francis Fox are both nauseating. A good portion of the novel is told through his viewpoint, and quite honestly he is a vile human. Secondly, the author’s writing style is very unique and worked for most of the book, but when we got to the second half of the novel, the focus became more on the investigation and it kind of became nuanced and dull. I think maybe if it had been cut down by about 100 pages that would’ve helped. While I think it worked reading from Fox’s perspective, it didn’t work as well for me from the detectives perspective. There was just something about Zwender that didn’t click with me, he just didn’t seem like a detective.
Due to the subject matter, this novel will certainly not be for everybody, but I do appreciate the unique approach the author took. Diving into the mind of somebody like Francis Fox is definitely a disturbing read.
September 28, 2025
This book was so disturbing. But well written. I have waited a long time to review it. Is it necessary for us to be able to get into the mind of someone who sexually abuses children? Into the minds of children who have been sexually abused? Especially if the abuser is a teacher?
Two days after I finished this book the teacher who taught my son in kindergarten was arrested. A male teacher. Caught in an undercover operation targeting adult men in an Internet forum for men who are sexually interested in boys. He had posted about being a teacher and saying that while he had not touched any of his students he did seat “hot boys” near him and would gaze at their bodies that he could see under their desks. When police searched his house they found, among other things, a locked box in his basement that contained: diapers, apple sauce packets, and a Santa costume.
The arrest (and later conviction) of my son’s former teacher made me rethink the value of this book.
Two days after I finished this book the teacher who taught my son in kindergarten was arrested. A male teacher. Caught in an undercover operation targeting adult men in an Internet forum for men who are sexually interested in boys. He had posted about being a teacher and saying that while he had not touched any of his students he did seat “hot boys” near him and would gaze at their bodies that he could see under their desks. When police searched his house they found, among other things, a locked box in his basement that contained: diapers, apple sauce packets, and a Santa costume.
The arrest (and later conviction) of my son’s former teacher made me rethink the value of this book.
January 6, 2026
"Fox" begins like a literary mystery: the car of missing private school English teacher Francis Fox is found half-submerged in a pond, a body nearby, and a small New England town is teeming with rumor. But despite the setup, this isn't a thriller or a whodunit. It's a dark, psychological dissection of power, predation, and complicity - a disturbing portrait of a man who manipulates and destroys those in his orbit, and of a community willing to look away until it's too late.
Hailed by some as the modern "Lolita" (ironic, considering the main protagonist's hatred of that book), Joyce Carol Oates's prose is characteristically rich and meticulous, but "Fox" is a difficult, deeply disturbing read. Much of the book is spent inside the mind of Francis Fox himself - a narcissistic, delusional predator whose justifications for his actions are as grotesque as they are repetitive, giving readers an ad nauseum, front row seat to the intimate, absolutely repulsive thoughts and rationale of a pedophile. There is a lot of detail about the exploitation of and violence against young children, and even though I realized this going in, I was still disgusted with the extent of some of the scenes, which felt unnecessarily explicit, almost voyeuristic. The book is already a lot longer than it should be, and cutting some of those explicit scenes would have helped not only with moving the story along, but also with the overall length of the book. Even worse, the novel's explicitness feels less illuminating than gratuitous at times; the horror of Fox's crimes needs no elaboration, and yet Oates lingers on them at uncomfortable length. The result is a work that feels more interested in provocation than in insight.
The audiobook's ensemble cast - featuring Max Meyers, Gail Shalan, Rebecca Lowman, Rachel L. Jacobs, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Ina Barron, Kirsten Potter, Matt Godfrey, Fred Berman, and Eunice Wong - delivers uniformly strong performances, capturing the claustrophobic unease of Oates's world with haunting precision. Still, no narration can quite offset the sense that the novel dwells too long in its own darkness.
Oates remains a masterful stylist, capable of dissecting moral decay with surgical precision. But here, not only does the autopsy feels endless, but its purpose remains uncertain. "Fox" is brilliantly written and undeniably unsettling, no doubt intentionally so, yet ultimately - for me, at least- it felt hollow at its core.
Hailed by some as the modern "Lolita" (ironic, considering the main protagonist's hatred of that book), Joyce Carol Oates's prose is characteristically rich and meticulous, but "Fox" is a difficult, deeply disturbing read. Much of the book is spent inside the mind of Francis Fox himself - a narcissistic, delusional predator whose justifications for his actions are as grotesque as they are repetitive, giving readers an ad nauseum, front row seat to the intimate, absolutely repulsive thoughts and rationale of a pedophile. There is a lot of detail about the exploitation of and violence against young children, and even though I realized this going in, I was still disgusted with the extent of some of the scenes, which felt unnecessarily explicit, almost voyeuristic. The book is already a lot longer than it should be, and cutting some of those explicit scenes would have helped not only with moving the story along, but also with the overall length of the book. Even worse, the novel's explicitness feels less illuminating than gratuitous at times; the horror of Fox's crimes needs no elaboration, and yet Oates lingers on them at uncomfortable length. The result is a work that feels more interested in provocation than in insight.
The audiobook's ensemble cast - featuring Max Meyers, Gail Shalan, Rebecca Lowman, Rachel L. Jacobs, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Ina Barron, Kirsten Potter, Matt Godfrey, Fred Berman, and Eunice Wong - delivers uniformly strong performances, capturing the claustrophobic unease of Oates's world with haunting precision. Still, no narration can quite offset the sense that the novel dwells too long in its own darkness.
Oates remains a masterful stylist, capable of dissecting moral decay with surgical precision. But here, not only does the autopsy feels endless, but its purpose remains uncertain. "Fox" is brilliantly written and undeniably unsettling, no doubt intentionally so, yet ultimately - for me, at least- it felt hollow at its core.
January 20, 2025
You never know what to expect from the prolific JCO and I certainly didn’t expect Fox. It is a deeply unsettling exploration of pedophilia from the perspective of both the perpetrator and the victims. In short, it is overly long, repetitive, and extraordinarily disturbing.
July 20, 2025
"Lovesick, heartsick, gutsick Francis Fox. He has gone too far, yet he hasn't gone far enough. He has missed the very best of life. He has wanted to suck the marrow out of the little girls' delicious white bones, nothing less. Yet--they elude him: they die or they get old. Or they run from his office like squirrelly little cowards before Mr. Teddy Bear can work his special magic on them."
Rating: three out of five Humberts. Speaking of foxes, the only non-Machiavellian fox out there is you, dear reader. Hubba hubba.
Rating: three out of five Humberts. Speaking of foxes, the only non-Machiavellian fox out there is you, dear reader. Hubba hubba.
December 21, 2025
Pod okriljem (privatnog) obrazovnog sistema, u elitnoj, i fizički skrajnutoj, "Langhorne" Akademiji, u pod okom javnosti pune učionice i privatnosti svoje podrumske kancelarije, živi i radi jedan pedofil.
Pe - do - fil.
Frensis Foks, šarmantni i harizmatični profesor engleskog jezika, miljenik učenica i školske uprave, sebe jasno percipira iz ugla društveno (ne)prihvatljivog. On zna da bi ga nazvali izopačenim i perverznim, te moralno i zakonski osudili. Takođe zna da Nabokov nema pojma o čemu govori, već da Kavabatina estetika u romanu "Kuća uspavanih lepotica", daje verodostojniji prikaz stvarnosti.
Odavde polazi novi roman Džojs Kerol Outs. "Fox", iako ispričan kroz niz sekvenci, likova i perspektiva, čvrsto stoji na tački gledišta jednog pedofila. Ali za razliku od jezičke poletnosti i razigranosti "Lolite", ovde nema takve čitalačke "utehe". Kroz desetine stranica scena predatorskog obletanja i seksualnog zlostavljanja malololetnica, spoznajemo sve što On može da bude.
On je Gospodin Lisac.
Gospodin Lisac je duhovit i neposredan, nežan ali i strog, on zna šta i kada treba da kaže. Kada govori, obraća se (samo) tebi. U njegovim očima postojiš samo ti i niko više.
Gospodin Lisac takođe zna da su devojčice iz razorenih porodica, izgubljene u kršu razvoda i rastavljanja, potmognute tartovima začinjenim voćem i sedativima, najbolje i najsigurnije mete. On je tu da zameni, da popuni razjapljenu rupu emocionalnog bola, da bude Tatica.
Ta - ti - ca.
Sve ovo zvuči izuzetno "hevi", i zaista jeste. To čini "Fox" ključnim romanom današnjice. U sklopu visoko intelektualnih predatora, odsutnih roditelja, školskih administratora koji o sebi govore u trećem licu, politike grabljenja novca kroz školarine i pasioniranog čuvanja ugleda, te guranja pod tepih, sve te žrtve ostaju skrivene u najčešće sa posledicama koje dovode do samog kraja.
Duboko u devetoj deceniji života, Džojs Kerol Outs nema nameru da posustane. "Fox" je efikasno izveden kroz ekonomiju pripovednja i takta. Sve odiše veštinom i kontrolom koje mogu da proizilaze samo iz jednog ogromnog iskustva.
"Fox" nije ni blizu autorkinim najvećim dostignućima, ali je i dalje krajnje impresivan poduhvat. Džojs Kerol Outs drži rekord - pet puta je bila finalista za Pulicerovu nagradu za beletristiku(fiction). Možda je ovo dovoljno da sledećeg maja sreća prevagne u njenu korist.
Pe - do - fil.
Frensis Foks, šarmantni i harizmatični profesor engleskog jezika, miljenik učenica i školske uprave, sebe jasno percipira iz ugla društveno (ne)prihvatljivog. On zna da bi ga nazvali izopačenim i perverznim, te moralno i zakonski osudili. Takođe zna da Nabokov nema pojma o čemu govori, već da Kavabatina estetika u romanu "Kuća uspavanih lepotica", daje verodostojniji prikaz stvarnosti.
Odavde polazi novi roman Džojs Kerol Outs. "Fox", iako ispričan kroz niz sekvenci, likova i perspektiva, čvrsto stoji na tački gledišta jednog pedofila. Ali za razliku od jezičke poletnosti i razigranosti "Lolite", ovde nema takve čitalačke "utehe". Kroz desetine stranica scena predatorskog obletanja i seksualnog zlostavljanja malololetnica, spoznajemo sve što On može da bude.
On je Gospodin Lisac.
Gospodin Lisac je duhovit i neposredan, nežan ali i strog, on zna šta i kada treba da kaže. Kada govori, obraća se (samo) tebi. U njegovim očima postojiš samo ti i niko više.
Gospodin Lisac takođe zna da su devojčice iz razorenih porodica, izgubljene u kršu razvoda i rastavljanja, potmognute tartovima začinjenim voćem i sedativima, najbolje i najsigurnije mete. On je tu da zameni, da popuni razjapljenu rupu emocionalnog bola, da bude Tatica.
Ta - ti - ca.
Sve ovo zvuči izuzetno "hevi", i zaista jeste. To čini "Fox" ključnim romanom današnjice. U sklopu visoko intelektualnih predatora, odsutnih roditelja, školskih administratora koji o sebi govore u trećem licu, politike grabljenja novca kroz školarine i pasioniranog čuvanja ugleda, te guranja pod tepih, sve te žrtve ostaju skrivene u najčešće sa posledicama koje dovode do samog kraja.
Duboko u devetoj deceniji života, Džojs Kerol Outs nema nameru da posustane. "Fox" je efikasno izveden kroz ekonomiju pripovednja i takta. Sve odiše veštinom i kontrolom koje mogu da proizilaze samo iz jednog ogromnog iskustva.
"Fox" nije ni blizu autorkinim najvećim dostignućima, ali je i dalje krajnje impresivan poduhvat. Džojs Kerol Outs drži rekord - pet puta je bila finalista za Pulicerovu nagradu za beletristiku(fiction). Možda je ovo dovoljno da sledećeg maja sreća prevagne u njenu korist.
June 5, 2025
5⭐️ This psychological thriller had me on the edge of my seat! Creepy charismatic Francis Fox is the new English teacher at an exclusive private school. All the young girls love him!
The first half is from the POV of Mr Fox. The second half picks up from the POV of police Sgt H Zwender investigating a mysterious murder/accident. Interspersed chapters from the POV of several young female students and female friends of Mr Fox.
So much to love about this book, the gorgeous writing, the interesting characters, the plot and mystery. Big twist at the end I did not see coming! Highly recommend!
Warning: pedophilia, mental illness, murder, suicide
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
The first half is from the POV of Mr Fox. The second half picks up from the POV of police Sgt H Zwender investigating a mysterious murder/accident. Interspersed chapters from the POV of several young female students and female friends of Mr Fox.
So much to love about this book, the gorgeous writing, the interesting characters, the plot and mystery. Big twist at the end I did not see coming! Highly recommend!
Warning: pedophilia, mental illness, murder, suicide
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
June 21, 2025
Published at Open Letters Review:
https://openlettersreview.com/posts/f...
A sun-drenched beauty crossing the lawn of a local park would likely garner glances from some of those lounging nearby. A few heads would rotate in the dreamy figure’s direction, perhaps a brave soul would try to spark a conversation. But of those who took notice, a greater number would not. Now, if in the same open green space a hideous figure trudged by, a creature with an open head wound and a severed leg jutting out of a backpack, stares and shrieks would be universal. This is the element of human nature which makes Joyce Carol Oates’ newest novel Fox so effective; it is nearly impossible to look away from the horrific.
A body is discovered early, Fox is a mystery at heart, but a gorgeously composed one that uses every modality to create ominous atmosphere:
The sky at dawn is clotted with dark tumors of cloud through which a sudden piercing light shines like a scalpel. In the mud-softened service road leading to the landfill, shimmering puddles in long narrow snakelike ruts. A smell of brackish swamp water from the vast marshland beyond and in the near distance black-winged turkey vultures like flattened silhouettes high in the air silently circling, swooping with the look of grisly frolic.
Gray locales reminiscent of the Ozarks frame much of the book. A car is discovered, a scattered corpse found nearby. For much of the novel the reader is unaware if the body is that of the central character, and whether we are dealing with someone else’s murder, suicide or accident. Shreds of plot are revealed through the perspective of parents, children, dogs, janitors, teachers, detectives, and our titular poet-protagonist, Francis Fox. Oates masterfully unravels horrors in metered pieces, pausing her spotlight briefly between characters. Relentless narrative changes leave the reader struggling for footing and little time is spent on in-story introspection.
With a curious effect, details and adjectives are often served in parentheticals. Over pages they act as a devil on our shoulder whispering extra words:
Here is a question for the (eager, fawning) candidate: he has taught in four schools in nine years, isn’t that most unusual?
And:
By the end of the first class period the boys will have detected something conspiratorial, (mildly) rebellious in his manner even as the girls will have detected something so thrilling, so roughly tender, they have not (yet) a vocabulary to express it.
Fox employs an unrelenting, rapid cadence that casts a trance. We are progressively assaulted by the depraved actions of one man which spreads a web of worry across a community. Incredible prose amplifies the suspense and power of the novel.
Joyce Carol Oates is famously skilled at revealing a monster’s psyche with realistic freakishness. Quintin P., the serial killer from Oates’ 1995 award-winning, Dahmer-inspired novel, Zombie, functions with an IQ around 70. Quintin’s first-person reflections on how to perfect an icepick lobotomy with child-like innocence is intensely scary, but details like the helpless baby chicks left squeaking around an abducted child’s bicycle is another level of skin crawling. Here, Francis Fox operates with above-average intelligence, but is every bit as broken and deluded as Lolita’s infamous Humbert Humbert. Much like Nabokov, Oates’ villain is humanized by scenes from his own perspective. The character rationalizes and justifies his perversion, but horror and suspense grow as each contributor adds to the story.
Authors of Oates’ talent rarely produce such a furious output of acclaimed work. Fox is Joyce Carol Oates’ 58th novel, her first published 62 years ago. At 86 years old, the literary community has discussed the impact of her legacy for some time. Questions which do not plague three or four book phenoms like Donna Tartt or Gilian Flynn haunt Oates. Could she become a victim of her productivity? Where does a new reader begin? Save such inquiries for Stephen King - Oates has never published a dud.
This is an author who persists in challenging us with electrifying books anchored in twisted material. With impressive authenticity, this octogenarian captures the inner workings of very young minds. Oates is effective at enticing before she frightens. This literary mystery offers candy before asking brave readers to step into its windowless panel van.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for a review copy.
https://openlettersreview.com/posts/f...
A sun-drenched beauty crossing the lawn of a local park would likely garner glances from some of those lounging nearby. A few heads would rotate in the dreamy figure’s direction, perhaps a brave soul would try to spark a conversation. But of those who took notice, a greater number would not. Now, if in the same open green space a hideous figure trudged by, a creature with an open head wound and a severed leg jutting out of a backpack, stares and shrieks would be universal. This is the element of human nature which makes Joyce Carol Oates’ newest novel Fox so effective; it is nearly impossible to look away from the horrific.
A body is discovered early, Fox is a mystery at heart, but a gorgeously composed one that uses every modality to create ominous atmosphere:
The sky at dawn is clotted with dark tumors of cloud through which a sudden piercing light shines like a scalpel. In the mud-softened service road leading to the landfill, shimmering puddles in long narrow snakelike ruts. A smell of brackish swamp water from the vast marshland beyond and in the near distance black-winged turkey vultures like flattened silhouettes high in the air silently circling, swooping with the look of grisly frolic.
Gray locales reminiscent of the Ozarks frame much of the book. A car is discovered, a scattered corpse found nearby. For much of the novel the reader is unaware if the body is that of the central character, and whether we are dealing with someone else’s murder, suicide or accident. Shreds of plot are revealed through the perspective of parents, children, dogs, janitors, teachers, detectives, and our titular poet-protagonist, Francis Fox. Oates masterfully unravels horrors in metered pieces, pausing her spotlight briefly between characters. Relentless narrative changes leave the reader struggling for footing and little time is spent on in-story introspection.
With a curious effect, details and adjectives are often served in parentheticals. Over pages they act as a devil on our shoulder whispering extra words:
Here is a question for the (eager, fawning) candidate: he has taught in four schools in nine years, isn’t that most unusual?
And:
By the end of the first class period the boys will have detected something conspiratorial, (mildly) rebellious in his manner even as the girls will have detected something so thrilling, so roughly tender, they have not (yet) a vocabulary to express it.
Fox employs an unrelenting, rapid cadence that casts a trance. We are progressively assaulted by the depraved actions of one man which spreads a web of worry across a community. Incredible prose amplifies the suspense and power of the novel.
Joyce Carol Oates is famously skilled at revealing a monster’s psyche with realistic freakishness. Quintin P., the serial killer from Oates’ 1995 award-winning, Dahmer-inspired novel, Zombie, functions with an IQ around 70. Quintin’s first-person reflections on how to perfect an icepick lobotomy with child-like innocence is intensely scary, but details like the helpless baby chicks left squeaking around an abducted child’s bicycle is another level of skin crawling. Here, Francis Fox operates with above-average intelligence, but is every bit as broken and deluded as Lolita’s infamous Humbert Humbert. Much like Nabokov, Oates’ villain is humanized by scenes from his own perspective. The character rationalizes and justifies his perversion, but horror and suspense grow as each contributor adds to the story.
Authors of Oates’ talent rarely produce such a furious output of acclaimed work. Fox is Joyce Carol Oates’ 58th novel, her first published 62 years ago. At 86 years old, the literary community has discussed the impact of her legacy for some time. Questions which do not plague three or four book phenoms like Donna Tartt or Gilian Flynn haunt Oates. Could she become a victim of her productivity? Where does a new reader begin? Save such inquiries for Stephen King - Oates has never published a dud.
This is an author who persists in challenging us with electrifying books anchored in twisted material. With impressive authenticity, this octogenarian captures the inner workings of very young minds. Oates is effective at enticing before she frightens. This literary mystery offers candy before asking brave readers to step into its windowless panel van.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for a review copy.
June 9, 2025
As a longtime admirer of Joyce Carol Oates, I opened Fox with high expectations. Her command of language is, as always, undeniable—but here, eloquence couldn’t disguise what ultimately felt like an overlong, unnecessary retread. The narrative meanders, circling familiar terrain—most notably Lolita—without offering much in the way of fresh perspective. Even in the hands of a writer as gifted as Oates, I’m not convinced we needed yet another iteration of that particular story.
The characters, with the notable exception of Demetrius, were uniformly tedious—either emotionally flat or so stylized as to feel almost parodic. And while the setting of Weiland and the exclusive Langhorne Academy could have been immersive, the prose was so dense and self-conscious that it pushed me out rather than drawing me in. The novel seemed more interested in its own cleverness than in building a world or deepening its characters.
One moment that perfectly encapsulated my frustration: “‘Inappro-pitly’—what’s that?” This from a seventh-grade girl, attending a prestigious private school, described as relatively intelligent? It defies credibility and disrupted whatever suspension of disbelief I had left.
Despite Oates’s literary prowess, Fox felt like a chore to finish. I considered abandoning it more than once—not out of outrage, but sheer boredom. I remain a fan of her work, but this novel simply didn’t earn its length or its premise.
The characters, with the notable exception of Demetrius, were uniformly tedious—either emotionally flat or so stylized as to feel almost parodic. And while the setting of Weiland and the exclusive Langhorne Academy could have been immersive, the prose was so dense and self-conscious that it pushed me out rather than drawing me in. The novel seemed more interested in its own cleverness than in building a world or deepening its characters.
One moment that perfectly encapsulated my frustration: “‘Inappro-pitly’—what’s that?” This from a seventh-grade girl, attending a prestigious private school, described as relatively intelligent? It defies credibility and disrupted whatever suspension of disbelief I had left.
Despite Oates’s literary prowess, Fox felt like a chore to finish. I considered abandoning it more than once—not out of outrage, but sheer boredom. I remain a fan of her work, but this novel simply didn’t earn its length or its premise.
November 19, 2025
Let me preface by saying that this novel will inevitably, due to the difficult subject matter, not be for everyone. In fact I myself was very disgusted by it at times but after completing I see what JCO was doing and to be totally frank, I am proud of her for doing it.
This is a novel about a sexual predator who has preyed upon students in the schools he teaches in but more importantly it is a scathing look at how these awful acts transpire under the noses of those around them and the inactions taken to prevent them.
I was left mouth agape at the ending of this 600+ page novel both because of JCO's incredible delivery but more so because of the realization that this is so easily realized as a true story. If there were any light at the end of this difficult read it would be in the call for action to maximize oversight and hold greater accountability not only of those we enable as caretaker of youth but parents as well.
This is a novel about a sexual predator who has preyed upon students in the schools he teaches in but more importantly it is a scathing look at how these awful acts transpire under the noses of those around them and the inactions taken to prevent them.
I was left mouth agape at the ending of this 600+ page novel both because of JCO's incredible delivery but more so because of the realization that this is so easily realized as a true story. If there were any light at the end of this difficult read it would be in the call for action to maximize oversight and hold greater accountability not only of those we enable as caretaker of youth but parents as well.
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