Fox - by Joyce Carol Oates (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - An "enthralling" (Los Angeles Times) and "remarkably engrossing" (The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice) 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--by legendary author Joyce Carol Oates

"Eerie, shocking, provoking, and beautifully written."--Gillian Flynn
"I found it mesmerizing front to back."--Michael Connelly
"I can't remember the last time I read something so (darkly, disconcertingly) addictive."--Rebecca Makkai
"An extraordinary novel . . . unlike any other mystery I've read."--Joseph Finder
"Tom Ripley, eat your heart out."--NPR
"A classic psychological suspense."--People
"A dark, daring plunge into literary suspense . . . Oates dissects the predator-prey dynamic with merciless precision."--The Seattle Times

A HARPER'S BAZAAR AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

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.

Review Quotes

"Utterly mesmeric."--The Guardian

"Remarkably engrossing . . . impressive and unsettling."--Owen King, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"A classic psychological suspense . . . feels ripped from the headlines."--People

"At the heart of her latest novel stands Francis Fox, a mysterious charmer who is nearly as protean as Oates, though--no offense to either novelist or character--profoundly more menacing. Tom Ripley, eat your heart out."--NPR

"This sprawling yet immersive novel is rich in suspense, diabolical secrets and psychological insight."--The Economist

"A dark, daring plunge into literary suspense, and it's absolutely chilling . . . Uneasy, unflinching and unforgettable, this is Oates at her most disturbing and masterful."--The Seattle Times

"Charming but mysterious English teacher . . . dead body . . . dogged detective . . . deep questions about what it means to be human . . . and Oates. Yes please."--Esquire

"It's no surprise [Oates has] written a big summer book. . . . Fox is poised to be the big escape a lot of us are looking for right about now."--The Boston Globe

"Enthralling . . . chilling . . . Oates wants us to turn pages and squirm."--Los Angeles Times

"A chilling portrait of manipulation and menace within the cloistered world of an elite boarding school."--Financial Times

"Eerie, shocking, provoking, and beautifully written, Fox is yet further proof that Oates is one of the greatest writers among us today."--#1 New York Times bestselling author Gillian Flynn

"As beautifully written and brilliantly constructed as this story is, as wonderful as the mystery is, Fox's power is in the many depths of character Joyce Carol Oates explores and how she captures the nuances of the choices people make."--#1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly

"I can't remember the last time I read something so (darkly, disconcertingly) addictive that yet bears so much realism and nuance and depth. Oates is a genius in the truest sense of the word--fearing nothing, including radical reinvention--and Fox is, to my mind, her most compelling book in her remarkable career."--Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of I Have Some Questions For You

"[A] psychological thriller about a private school teacher whose disturbing past is uncovered when his car is found submerged in the swampy wetlands . . . a probing analysis of the mind of a predatory person."--Hartford Courant

"[Fox is] unlike any other mystery I've read. It's so fully imagined, in the way that only Oates can do, powerful and sinister and beautifully written in her mesmerizing prose. Nobody else writes like the great Joyce Carol Oates. It's remarkable."--New York Times bestselling author Joseph Finder

"Oates layers this extraordinarily complex tale with many surprises that keep the pages turning to the point where the length of the novel seems effortless on her part and impossible to put down . . . [Oates is] a literary master."--Bookreporter

"A mystery at heart, but a gorgeously composed one that uses every modality to create ominous atmosphere . . . Iit is nearly impossible to look away."--Open Letters Review

"Joyce Carol Oates's astounding Fox is at once a psychological thriller, a police procedural, and a fair-play puzzler."--Shelf Awareness

"[A] captivating whodunit . . . Oates is at the top of her game."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"[Oates] is at her best here: insightful, unrelenting, and devastating."--Library Journal, starred review

"Menacing, mesmerizing, and thoroughly provocative."--Booklist, starred review

"A tautly wound procedural, elegantly written . . . [a] moody, often shocking mystery."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"A master of her craft."--AARP

About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of a National Humanities Medal awarded by President Barack Obama, the National Book Critics Circle's Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award, the National Book Award in Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize, the Prix Femina, the Cino Del Duca World Prize, and is a five-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the bestsellers Blonde and We Were the Mulvaneys. She is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Distinguished Professor of the Humanities Emerita at Princeton University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2024 she won the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award given to "a master of the thriller and noir literary genre."