If Joyce Carol Oates remembers anything about growing up, it has to be the intense
alliances that are formed between the well-meaning "good" child and the
wonderfully free, dangerous "bad" child. The "bad" child taunts other
children with new and exciting experiences, and introduces them to a world beyond their
community where everything is available and everyone is waiting for them. FOXFIRE is the
finest novel I have ever read about teenage girls; their relationships with each other,
and the petty jealousies that threaten to destroy the otherwise tightly woven fabric of
their love. It is one of the most fully realized books she has ever written.
Maddy leads a grim existence with her friends in a tiny industrial town where poverty is
prevalent. A natural-born writer, she remembers the arrival of Legs, a delinquent from the
wrong end of the wrong side of the tracks who suddenly bursts upon the local high school.
Legs doesn't come from a good family, but she manages to make Maddy and the others think
that their families aren't so hot, either. When she steals back the typewriter Maddy
pawned to a lecherous "uncle," Legs becomes the leader of a gang of female
outcasts, "Foxfire." Finding a burnt-out house in the woods, the girls quietly
leave their families and move in together, creating a teenage wasteland, of homemade
tattoos, drugs, illness, and the occasional lesbian encounter between Legs and Maddy.
Naturally, Legs' affection for Maddy ends up tearing the group apart. Their pubescent
world of freedom and love is destroyed by the same things that drive wedges between
parents and children and teachers in the real world.
FOXFIRE was actually made into a pretty dismal film, which, regardless of the bungling of
the story, featured award-winning actress Angelina Jolie. But I will say that she was
miscast. Legs is an all-American hood from the '50s, sassy and street-smart, with an
endless cigarette dangling from her lips. FOXFIRE is a remarkable book in that, regardless
of the time and circumstances of your own adolescence, you will find something here that
reminds you of your own life. You see through the girls' bravado and, as with so many
Oates books, wish that you could grab them and get them off the wrong path.
FOXFIRE is sure to rev the hearts of anyone who reads it, but particularly women, as it
dissects our most basic need for meaningful relationships.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
