Charlotte Kersten

Year published: 2011

Category: Litfic/magical realism

Summary: 

It’s a bright afternoon in 1938 and Mary Foxe is in a confrontational mood. St John Fox, celebrated novelist, hasn’t seen her in six years. He’s unprepared for her afternoon visit, not least because she doesn’t exist. He’s infatuated with her. But he also made her up.
“You’re a villain,” she tells him. ‘A serial killer . . . can you grasp that?”
Will Mr Fox meet his muse’s challenge, to stop murdering his heroines and explore something of love? What will his wife Daphne think of this sudden change in her husband? Can there be a happy ending – this time?

My thoughts: 

There’s no doubt in my mind after finishing this that Helen Oyeyemi is an incredibly talented writer. Her writing is beautiful, clever, and often extremely funny. Mr. Fox does a lot of things all at once, and it does them really well.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the discussion of women’s experiences in writing and publishing, as well as the way that male authors write violence against women in stories. Oyeyemi considers how this violence is justified as art, as well as how it may relate to the violence of paternalism in gender roles and marriage. A lot of this happens in the parts of the story focused on the misogynistic author St. John Fox, his fictional creation Mary Foxe, and his wife Daphne. Mary Foxe as an embodied creation is so interesting. In one respect, she is totally dependent on Mr. Fox – he created her and can choose to take away her clothes and voice at any time he pleases to punish her and exert his control over her. Yet she also manages to elude, frustrate, and challenge him. At one point, Mr. Fox thinks to himself about how much he hates “women who look back” as opposed to women who are simply looked at – those with their own agency to act and respond as opposed to those who are passive and objectified, only existing to be consumed. Mary certainly looks back, and she seems able to truly defy his control by the end of the book, when she becomes her own person and leaves to go off on her own adventure.

I also loved Daphne’s part of the ending. Her voice is delightful, and she is the one who helps Mary become real. She also decides to write her own book instead of simply being an author’s wife; crucially, she is emphatic about the fact that it will be a book where no women die. The only part I’m not sure about is how she reconciles with her husband even though she seems to be entirely aware that the relationship is not going to work itself out into a better state. I’m curious about why Oyeyemi decided to leave things on that note when other parts of the ending feel a lot more certain and clear about paternalism/patriarchal violence being eluded.

The Mr. Fox/Mary/Daphne story is interwoven with lots of short stories. Some of these are by Mr. Fox and Mary Foxe about each other while others are about different “types” of foxes or are variations on the original Mr. Fox fairy tale. There is one about Mary as a model who falls in love with a kind, compassionate Mr. Fox while dealing with the trauma of her father’s fatal abuse of her mother. Another is the story of a Yoruba woman who is brought to Paris and forced to write her ancestors’ stories by a figure called Reynardine. Most of the stories explore some combination of story-telling/writing, violence, power, and relationships between men and women. I think they’re all extremely good, but some feel like a closer “fit” for the book than others. My favorite is probably the final story in the book, which is a beautiful, strange one about a wild fox who falls in love with the woman who saves him and then teaches him how to read.

This book gave me a lot to think about while also being incredibly written and wholly unique. I can understand why it might not be a great fit for every reader, but it was for me!