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Fox

A Novel

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Fox

By: Joyce Carol Oates
Narrated by: Max Meyers, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Kirsten Potter, Fred Berman, Matt Godfrey, Gail Shalan, Rebecca Lowman, Rachel L. Jacobs, Eunice Wong, Ina Barrón
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About this listen

An “enthralling” (Los Angeles Times) 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—by the legendary author “who is surely on any shortlist of America’s greatest living writers” (The New York Times Magazine)

“Eerie, shocking, provoking, and beautifully written, Fox is yet further proof Oates is one of the greatest writers among us today.”—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

Fox is poised to be the big escape a lot of us are looking for right about now.”—The Boston Globe

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Seattle Times, Vulture, Esquire, Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub, AV Club, AARP

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.

©2025 Joyce Carol Oates (P)2025 Random House Audio
Coming of Age Genre Fiction Psychological Scary Student
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Critic reviews

“Reading Fox is like being spellbound by a hypnotist who may not wish you well, who leads you, with a deceptively gentle hand, toward that dark forest you fear. Joyce Carol Oates has created a sinister fable all the more chilling for persuading its readers to collude in the unthinkable. 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

“What a gift this book is! 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. I found it mesmerizing front to back—another master class from one of America’s greatest writers.”—#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

All stars
Most relevant  
The stuff you’re reading is graphic and immoral, but the central mystery ties together all the questions you want answers to, which boil down to one:

Who is Francis Fox? What is the truth surrounding the things found in the woods?

Boy, were the answers worth it. And it becomes all the more delicious when Francis meets someone he can’t easily manipulate. Like a poisonous, beautiful, but immoral flower. Forbidden, hypnotic, dreamlike, and in some places-nightmarish.

Intoxicating, Taboo, Hypnotic

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