Ask a Bookseller: ‘Fox: A Novel’ by Joyce Carol Oates

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.If you’re going to read a book about a dark character or a difficult subject, do it on a sunny summer day, not when you’re home in the cold and dark of winter. That’s the suggestion of Angel Dobrow of Zenith Bookstore in Duluth, who recommends “Fox: A Novel” by Joyce Carol Oates. We start off the novel from the point of view of Francis Fox, a charismatic middle school English teacher at an elite private school. When he’s found dead, the town sheriff suspects it’s not an accident, and he begins to peel back the layers. Fox — not his real name — is a predator. A pedophile.  The bulk of the story, though, is from the perspectives of the people connected to Fox or to the school: the plodding, intelligent sheriff; the political headmistress out to protect the reputation of her school; several of Fox’s students and their families. What struck Dobrow over and over, she said, was the quality of the writing: “It’s interesting; it’s suspenseful. You don’t really know, and until the very end, and even then, you’re not 100 percent sure. It’s not a who-dunnit. It’s just a really good survey of power and human diversity and capacity. It’s a really well-told story.”