a shimmering landscape pulsating with life.”-Aimee Bender, The New York Times Book Review “Oyeyemi’s writing is gorgeous and resonant and fresh . . . Fox is a magical book, endlessly inventive, as witty and charming as it is profound in its truths about how we learn to be with one another. The extraordinarily gifted Helen Oyeyemi has written a love story like no other. Fox is offered a choice: Will it be a life with the girl of his dreams, or a life with an all-too-real woman who delights him more than he cares to admit? Meanwhile, Daphne becomes convinced that her husband is having an affair, and finds her way into Mary and Mr. Their adventures twist the fairy tale into nine variations, exploding and teasing conventions of genre and romance, and each iteration explores the fears that come with accepting a lifelong bond.

Fox to join her in stories of their own devising and in different times and places, the two of them seek each other, find each other, thwart each other, and try to stay together, even when the roles they inhabit seem to forbid it. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. From a prizewinning young writer, a brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration.įairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi