Hiding in plain sight

Joyce Carol Oates dishes up an engrossingly gross whodunnit about the timely murder of a despicable teacher.

- BY HELENA WIŚNIEWSKA BROW

Circling vultures are rarely an upbeat sign, especially in a work of fiction. And in this latest from Joyce Carol Oates, vultures appear on the opening page, “swooping with a look of grisly frolic” above a southern New Jersey nature preserve.

Fox is the tale of sexual predator and paedophile Francis Harlan Fox, a charismatic middle school teacher who brings misery to an unsuspecting community.

It's dark territory for any novel, but not entirely surprising for celebrated author Oates, who is well known for her gothic horror and psychological realism. Many of the 62 works that make up the 87-year-old’s huge back catalogue - including the two most recent, Butcher and Babysitter - explore deviant criminal behaviour, particularly against women.

Oates has said that the inspiration for Fox came from a true case: a sexual predator - “so charming, actually a good teacher” - who exploited his classroom power to abuse vulnerable girls. Particularly disturbing was that the man almost got away with it; his victims believed they were in love and refused to give him up. “It sort of outraged me,” Oates said in a recent interview.

Which perhaps explains why this novel opens with her fictional villain's deeds thoroughly avenged. The vultures’ slow circling leads to Fox's half-submerged car in Wieland’s scenic marshlands, the body of its driver so decomposed and picked apart by wild creatures that it takes weeks for a formal confirmation of identity.