The time is the 1950s. The place is a blue-collar town in upstate New York, where five high school girls are joined in a gang dedicated to pride, power, and vengeance on a world that seems made to denigrate and destroy them. Foxfire is Joyce Carol Oates’s strongest and most unsparing novel yet—an always engrossing, often shocking evocation of female rage, gallantry, and grit. Here is the secret history of a sisterhood of blood, a haven from a world of male oppressors, marked by a liberating fury that burns too hot to last. Above all, it is the story of Legs Sadovsky, with her lean, on-the-edge, icy beauty, whose nerve, muscle, hate, and hurt make her the spark of Foxfire, its guiding spirit, its burning core. At once brutal and lyrical, this is a careening joyride of a novel—charged with outlaw energy and lit by intense emotion. Amid scenes of violence and vengeance lies this novel’s greatest power: the exquisite, astonishing rendering of the bonds that link the Foxfire girls together. Foxfire reaffirms Joyce Carol Oates’s place at the very summit of American writing.
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Oates depicts a gang of five adolescent girls growing up amidst violence and frustration in upstate New York during the 1950s.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
$21. F Oates, one of America's most distinguished and prolific writers, has triumphed again with this deftly crafted, highly imaginative novel about a girl gang called Foxfire and its leader, Legs Sadovsky. Legs is many things: a female Robin Hood, a Marxist revolutionary, a highly intelligent naif, an incredibly bold, indestructible heroine. Legs, who is wise beyond her years, dominates Foxfire with her superiority. But Legs is not a writer; that responsibility she delegates to Maddy Wirtz, who becomes the official chronicler of Foxfire's history. Later in life, in search of elusive truth, Maddy returns to her notebooks and relives her Foxfire days of the 1950s, a decade she and her female contemporaries (of all ages) experienced through violence, fear, and oppression. The forces that gave rise to Foxfire and the bonds that kept it together raise many interesting questions about gender, social status, and sexuality. As in any Oates novel, these multiple themes intertwine to create a richly textured piece. Highly recommended.
- Janet Wilson Reit, Univ. of Vermont Lib., Burlington
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Janet Wilson Reit, Univ. of Vermont Lib., Burlington
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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More About the Author
Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 70 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Among her many honors are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I knew that the film (Starring Angelina Jolie and Jenny Shimizu... yum!) version was based LOOSELY on this book - but i didn't realize HOW loosely! The book is 1,000,000 times better than the movie. The characters are more real (not 5 very attractive girls being a little "naughty"), the acts of rebellion more extreme, the setting (small blue collar town in New York State, 1950's) more appropriate... and it's just all more compelling. The novel really helps you get into the mindset of the sisterhood of the gang - and is more racey. Everything was toned down for the film, and loses a lot of the intensity.
Even if you didn't like the film - you should check out this book. It exhibits some female rebellion in a time/place where women could hardly expect the respect that FOXFIRE demands.
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
By Archimago
Format:Paperback
Oates' novel begins with a furious pace and never lets up. The prose mirrors the feeling and the action of the novel -- fast-paced, raw and vibrant. Legs Sadovsky is one of the most memorable characters I have encountered in a long time -- a complex character that needs another book! I read this book in one sitting because I just couldn't stop reading. I had to find our what happened to Foxfire and Legs and why these girls ended up separating. The way Oates develops the chracterization of the gang, as if it were a character itself, is fantastic. We watch the gang go from petty vandalism to violence and prostitution, and the whole way we can understand why they have made the choices they do. I felt for these characters and never once thought they went too far, even their final act which seals their fate.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
When I read Foxfire four years ago, I became a Joyce Carol Oates fanatic. That didn't change when I read it again just recently. Its appeal is the girl gang idea- about the power struggles that each of the five girls as they move through adolescence. Legs Sadowsky is a troubled young girl who brings four others together in ways they never thought possible. Oates has a marvelous way with words, in which you are horrified yet at the same time fascinated by all that happens. Legs makes for a marvelous, beautiful character in that way. The girls are brutal to one another, and harsh to an outside world, which has, in a way, rejected them. In the end, the girls have to make decisions about growing up that affect each other and, inevitably, the outside world. Its a sexy, sad, and thought-provoking book that I couldn't put down.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Item came on time
The item came in the condition that was specified on the product description. I was very pleased with the purchase and shipping method.
Published 4 months ago by Mikal Hemingway
5.0 out of 5 stars
An outlaw gang
Foxfire, is about a girl gang, members aged 13-17, that forms in a small blue collar town in Upstate New York from 1952-1956. Read more
Published 10 months ago by S. Yu
4.0 out of 5 stars
Retaliation
This novel is a fictionalized account of an all-female gang that forms in a working class community in upstate New York. Read more
Published on October 7, 2008 by LH422
5.0 out of 5 stars
LEGS
Legs Sadovsky is one of the greatest characters that I've ever encountered. She is absolutely larger than life. Read more
Published on January 18, 2008 by M. Cameron
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not so good
I wanted to like this book. It started out good. As I read on, I started to get bored. Borrow it from a library if you can. Save your money.
Published on September 1, 2007 by Fuzzy Lizard
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as I expected
Reading some of the reviews for this book led me to believe that this book would be a good read. I was wrong. Read more
Published on January 20, 2007 by Courtney M. Bolton
1.0 out of 5 stars
it gets 1 star for the cover of the book, which I liked
This book was so horrible. It was given to me by one of my friends for Christmas. I'm so glad I didn't actually part with legal tender for this putrid novel. Read more
Published on August 1, 2006 by Mrs. W. Ardoin
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not a fan of Oates
I have tried to read the work of this amazing writer and more often than not find myself closing the book completely uninterested in the characters and/or the story. Read more
Published on January 9, 2006 by Satia Renee
5.0 out of 5 stars
Joyce Carol Oates wrote this as Rosamund Smith!
Sometimes you see this book by Rosamund Smith, which is Joyce Carol Oates by another name!
Published on December 17, 2005 by Carole F.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Movie - Better Book
FOXFIRE by Joyce Carol Oates is a haunting tale of the relationships developed among groups of outcasts and "leftovers," marginalized by the established mainstream. Read more
Published on December 14, 2005 by John Conner
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