Earlier this year in AP Literature and Composition we read a short story by Joyce Carol Oates called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and it was one of the most compelling short stories I’ve ever read. So I decided to buy a whole book by Oates when I went to the book store the other day and FOXFIRE: Confessions of a Girl Gang caught my eye and was also pretty cheap, and I decided to buy it.
It took a little bit for me to get into at first, not because it wasn’t interesting, but just because Oates’ style of writing takes about 30 pages of reading to adjust to. Once I was that far in though I couldn’t put it down. It follows the written history of a girl gang in a small town in upstate New York. At the beginning of the chronicles the girls are only 13 years old. I normally would not believe a group of five 13 year old girls to be as manipulative, talented and frankly scary as the FOXFIRE girls are, but the leader of the group, Legs (born Margaret Sadovsky) is an incredibly flawless, yet terrifying leader that is capable of getting anything she wants be her own means.
The book is set in the early 1950s and the discrimination of the girls by not only society in general, but other gangs in particular is really interesting to watch play out and see how it ties into the lives of all the girls that are a part of FOXFIRE.
FOXFIRE took me a little longer to read than I’m used to (about a week and a half) but it was definitely worth the time. Joyce Carol Oates is a fantastic author and I’m looking forward to reading more of her books.
