Hello hello! How are we in October already? After nearly a decade in the southern hemisphere, I still think of this time of year as autumn and, in Christchurch this week, you could be forgiven for thinking so. The mornings and nights are still cold but the days are a beautiful temperature—of course, here it’s spring, but I’ll use any excuse to get cosy.
And yes, I am finally in New Zealand! After all the planning and packing and stressing and chaos, we are here and things are happening. I’m feeling like a real person now that I have a local driver’s licence, a bank account, and all the boring admin required to move countries. It’s all fun and games until you can’t do anything without proof of address.
Also, we found a home! We still have another week and a half until we can move in, but it’s a relief to know that these days of living out of a suitcase have an end date.
So on to the books. I wasn’t reading anything when we landed and so I started Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. Smith. I was enjoying it but wasn’t really into it at the time, due to no fault of Smith at all. I was in the mood for something longer, grittier, maybe something best read in spurts, and so decided it was the right time to pick up Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox.
It feels sacrilegious to admit that this was my first book by JCO. She’s published 58 novels (!!) along with short story collections, poetry, and nonfiction. At the age of 87, she’s still putting out new books—amazing, considering I hope to be very much retired and drinking cocktails by the beach at that age.
Anyway, Fox. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s “a spellbinding novel of literary and psychological suspense about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school.”
When Francis Fox, a popular English teacher at a prestigious school in southern New Jersey, turns up dead in the woods, his abandoned car nearby, no one understands what happened. His students are devastated, with one girl attempting to take her own life. The headmistress of Langhorne Academy, where Fox was a new teacher, refuses to believe he’s dead. And then questions about who this man was and why he was there begin to surface.
Don’t let the fact that this book took me a week to read fool you (I had a lot on!). This book was truly unputdownable and I attribute that to Oates’s ability to get into Fox’s head, for Fox is a predator.
He preys on his “Little Kittens,” the girls in his classes who get an asterisk next to their name on the roll list. He actively seeks out girls who aren’t boarders at the school—too difficult for things not to leak—and from homes without a father present—no dads to come kick his ass.
He is slow, he is methodical. He manipulates not just his students, but everyone around him. For Fox’s life is built around his prey: identifying it, stalking it, toying with it, using it, and then discarding it when he’s done. Except in this case, it’s prepubescent girls.
This isn’t an easy book to read—I kept thinking of my experiences reading both My Dark Vanessa and Lolita while reading this, and how uncomfortable these types of stories can be. (Fox, of course, despises Lolita, unable to deal with the similarities between himself and Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert.)
As a reader, you do get some moments of reprieve in the chapters that aren’t from Fox’s point of view. And here’s where things get really interesting: in getting into the heads of the people in the community, you start to understand how these things get swept under the rug.
Multiple characters in the story refuse to believe what they’re told about Fox, even when shown video evidence. A lawyer whom Fox uses after the first “incident” is discovered is called upon at every subsequent school where, under the threat of legal action, former employers write him letters of recommendation rather than risk harming their school’s reputation. What’s a middle school girl when endowments are at stake?
The other part of this book that’s stuck with me while also leaving me feeling ill is a line that Oates uses. I’m paraphrasing, but essentially it’s that for many of the girls Fox left in his wake, they won’t believe they were victims, they’ll think Fox was their first love. It’s sick but Oates nails the tone and captures the complexity of what men like Fox do to young girls.
Speaking of the writing, as an Oates first timer, I couldn’t get enough. The way she described settings, how she got into her characters’ heads, and the subtle clues and cues throughout—I understand now why she’s such a stalwart of American literature. The ending was masterful. It was fully unexpected and had me thinking back throughout the book, trying to piece together the breadcrumbs, while also wondering who to believe.
There were a few loose ends that I would’ve loved to see come together because I was so invested in the story but no matter, I gave this five stars. I think Fox will be in my head for some time.
What I’m reading
Last month I read both The Names and Broken Country, Read with Jenna and Reese’s Book Club picks, respectively. Neither went well for me, as often happens with these selections. However, I had A Family Matter by Claire Lynch on my digital library holds list—also a Read with Jenna pick—and against my better judgment, decided to read it.
Well, well, well! I’m about halfway through but thoroughly enjoying it. It’s a story about a complicated family that’s moving quickly and isn’t saccharine. I’ll report back when I finish in case it goes off the rails but if this was on your list, I think you’ll enjoy.
What I’m watching
In this case, it’s what I’ve watched and that is the Charlie Sheen documentary on Netflix. I put this on Sunday morning when, admittedly, I was very hungover from watching the AFL Grand Final the night before. What better to make me feel better about my sorry state than this?
I do find it interesting that so many celeb “docos” are coming out right now. I wish there were a better way to describe them because these are almost all bankrolled by the celebrity in question. They’re not quite puff pieces, but they also steer clear of some of the meatier topics.
Anyway, back to Charlie Sheen. Look, I had no thoughts on the man before watching and I still don’t really now after watching, except to think, “Jesus Christ, how are you still alive?”
I know him mainly from when I catch a glimpse of him on network TV reruns of Two and a Half Men before I change the channel and then his very public breakdowns in the 2010s. I never realised how many films he had under his belt or that his father is Martin Sheen (should’ve been obvious) and his brother is Emilio Estevez.
The two-part series doesn’t steer clear from his drug use or some of his more unsavoury habits, but I don’t feel like I have a good understanding of him, what makes him tick, what finally drove him to rehab, or how he keeps it going. What does come through very clearly is that this man has a family who has stood by him through a lot of shit, including one of his ex-wives, Denise Richards.
Would I recommend this? Ehh, it’s good for second screen viewing or if you’re like me and spending a morning melting into the couch. By the end of the two episodes, I felt overwhelmed with all the drug use, wondered about the women and children he’s left in his wake, and still don’t really care about the actor. It also all feels a bit like a commercial for his new memoir (we are always being sold something!). That said, it sounds like he’s turned over a new leaf, so who am I to judge?
Let’s chat! Have you read Joyce Carol Oates before and have you/will you read Fox? Are there any good documentaries (not of celeb ilk) that I should check out?
I'm sold on the JCO and also, yay to see how you are progressing in NZ!
Thank you, lovely!! And I'd be sooo keen to hear how you find Fox! Have you read anything by her before?