Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel, Fox, delves into the far-reaching harm inflicted by Francis Harlan Fox, a manipulative English teacher at an elite boarding school in southern New Jersey. The character, a sociopath who exploits his position to sexually abuse adolescent female students, uses his influence to manipulate those around him—including friends, parents, school authorities, and even the legal system—to conceal his crimes.
The novel’s narrative is anchored by a mysterious discovery: an unidentified corpse, mauled by animals, found in Fox’s car at the bottom of a ravine. This plot device allows Oates to alternate between past and present events, gradually revealing the extent of Fox’s cruelty. As the story unfolds, readers are drawn into a tense desire for justice against this unsettling antagonist.
Oates’s Fox bears the unmistakable influence of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Fox openly criticizes Nabokov’s novel, and his office neighbor is named Quilty—echoing the notorious character from Lolita. Unlike Nabokov’s narrative, which centers on Humbert Humbert’s perspective, Oates gives voice to Fox’s victims, highlighting their trauma and resilience.
One victim, Mary Ann Healy, is a scholarship student from a troubled home whose early puberty triggers harsh ostracism and bullying. Oates portrays Mary Ann’s vulnerability with particular empathy, illustrating the absence of support she faces: “Freak! Freaky! — Dirty girl,” she is repeatedly taunted. Rather than providing refuge, Fox himself becomes another source of harm. Though Mary Ann develops an infatuation with Fox, he views her as a threat to his reputation and drives her out of school, leaving her fate hauntingly unresolved.
The novel also critiques the blindness of adults complicit in enabling Fox’s abuse. His longtime friend, an heiress, ignores his dubious past, while parents and the school’s headmistress dismiss or overlook signs of his misconduct. This systemic failure underscores the novel’s theme of societal neglect.
A secondary character, police detective Horace Zwender, emerges late in the narrative as a flawed but determined figure trying to uncover the truth. Despite his efforts, the damage to the victims remains unaddressed, emphasizing the absence of community accountability.
Fox is not the first time Oates has explored the darkness behind a monstrous figure masquerading as human. The novel echoes themes from her 1995 work Zombie, inspired by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, which also examined the environment that cultivates such violence and society’s failure to recognize it.
Reflecting on Zombie, critic Steven Marcus questioned whether Oates’s portrayal of America as a society bordering on madness was justified. Nearly 30 years later, Fox invites renewed contemplation on how cultural and institutional failures allow predators like Fox to thrive.
