Fox by Joyce Carol Oates
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Fox
By Joyce Carol Oates
Random House 2025
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.
Ryan Davison, PhD is a writer living in Lisbon