The Hidden World of the Fox
By Adele Brand
William Morrow, 2019 

“A fox is a fixed point of reference,” writes Adele Brand in her slim, enchanting new book The Hidden World of the Fox: 

Compare it to a billboard on a train station that turns the heads of a hundred commuters, each of whom will silently superimpose their own taste and needs over whatever is being advertised. How we colour the distance between us, is a product of us. The fox does not change. 

And yet, much of the central movement of the book deals with foxes changing. As humans steadily encroach on their natural habitats everywhere in the world, foxes have been capitalizing on their broad-based omnivore capabilities in order to adapt, filling public parks, urban gardens, and even city streets with the same bouncy aplomb they’ve been exhibiting in fields and meadows for millions of years. Brand follows several individuals, naming them and learning their personalities, and reviewing hours and hours of footage to divine what foxes in these new settings are doing. She reviews trail camera footage of a fox cocking his leg to urinate at nose-level against a wall, watching as a second fox trots by and stops to examine the spot (“What could it have learned from the urine of its predecessor?” she asks). The foxes in question are exchanging information as they have for three million years, but the wall is new: they’re living their lives now right alongside the daily architecture of the human world. 

Throughout, Brand’s enthusiasm for foxes is brightly infectious. She’s a keen appreciator of the wonder these animals carry around with them. “Upon seeing a fox,” she rightly observes, “many people are not sure what to say.”

That enthusiasm is so winning that it can withstand even the most outrageous allusion a nature writer could make. Foxes are of the dog kind, Brand assures her readers, but: 

Many fox-watchers, including myself, enjoy the cat-like grace of the species: the delicate pounce and careful footsteps. They [sic] grey fox of North and Central America takes the feline vibe a step further with its deft skill in climbing trees. But foxes of all species are undeniably canid, that is, members of Canidae, the dog family. 

Cat-like grace? The nerve. 

Steve Donoghue is a founding editor of Open Letters Monthly. His book criticism has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The Historical Novel Society, and The American Conservative. He writes regularly for The National, The Washington Post, The Vineyard Gazette, and The Christian Science Monitor. His website is http://www.stevedonoghue.com.