Book Review: "Fox" by Joyce Carol Oates

I've written quite a bit about Joyce Carol Oates in the past and you can take a look at some of it here... If you want to skip it, I honestly don't mind but there's a lot...:

I've only tagged the 5/5 ones, but if you type in 'Joyce Carol Oates' into the search bar then you'll find lots of my reviews on her books...

Well, Fox starts as every Joyce Carol Oates novel does, with something morally grey and shocking. In this case it is a man who finds a car upturned with a dead body inside. But by then we've already been introduced to the sickly yet lovely child named Eunice and her lovely yet difficult relationship with her father who finds her curiosity intense to deal with. We also get introduced by reference only to a man named Francis Fox. All of these things better be connected because I cannot wait to see what happens. Something always happens in a Joyce Carol Oates novel and it's always intense and complex.

Well, the first thing we find out is that Francis Fox is a teacher and he was extremely beloved. But we also find that the dead body is in fact, also Francis Fox. Of course, we are bewildered by this because it throws us off from the usual 'beloved teacher' narrative and into something far more strange. Our first question is: if this man was so beloved and successful then how and why is he upturned in his car and dead? And in the classic Joyce Carol Oates fashion, we have a bunch of answers to this question that add into this almost true-crime investigation. A true crime investigation in which the main criminal is: Francis Fox. JCO is about to expose this whole criminal underbelly, this whole atmosphere of cult hero worship and this tale of terror in the worst possible way: graphic recounts and stories litter the narrative which almost led me to put a trigger warning on this review.

Eunice can be a very difficult little girl and her father is trying his best with her. She's curious and asks every question under the sun and he wants to answer them all but he doesn't have that kind of time or energy. Him seeing his daughter relies purely on her mother's mood on the day and he wants to spend his time with her joyfully but also carefully. It will, of course, be Eunice that falls under the spell of Francis Fox. From the reviews I read of this book, they seem to liken the relationship between Fox and Eunice to that which appears in the book Lolita, but I would argue that this book is far more graphic and that is why I will say this: if you're going to read this book then please be aware there are some very upsetting scenes inside. But in classic JCO fashion yet again, they all actually make sense when you see where the story is going.

You're hoping it's the father aren't you? You're hoping it's the father who put Francis Fox dead and upside-down in his care. But no. You're wrong. Instead you're going to be led by the father, the daughter, those folks who discover the body, the police, and yes, even the pet dog - through a legal nightmareish drama and a psychological thriller. A thriller that will sometimes have you on the edge of your seat, sometimes have the bile rising in your throat and sometimes, it will just make you feel like the world is about to implode. If I were to say one thing about this book it is that Joyce Carol Oates is definitely producing her best work despite being almost ninety years' old. It is such a consistently well-written novel. Every word and its tone is just right for the atmosphere.

All in all, I hope you can tell that I enjoyed this book because it was a brilliant, yet quite a lengthy, thriller. You have probably seen I appreciate JCO's work and I will continue to do so for as long as we have it. I would say that if you're starting off with her work though perhaps don't start with one that hits as hard as this one. You might not want to know the answer to the age-old question the book asks us over and over again: who is Francis Fox?