Foxfire | Foxfire

At a glance:

Author: Joyce Carol Oates
First Published: 1993
Type of Work: Novel
Type of Plot: Psychological realism
Time of Work: 1952-1956
Setting: Hammond, a small city in upstate New York
Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism
Subjects: 1950’s, Girls, United States or Americans, Sexism, Teenagers, Crime or criminals, Prostitution or prostitutes, Alienation, Gangs, youth, Poverty or poor people, Rape, Violence, Feminism, Revenge, Sexual harassment, Kidnapping, Women’s rights, Typewriters
Locales: Hammond, NY, Lake Ontario

Characters Discussed

Madeleine (Maddy) Faith Wirtz, the novel’s narrator. Maddy lives quietly in New Mexico, where she works as an astronomer’s assistant. Thirty-five years earlier, she was a member of FOXFIRE and the historian of that gang’s violent exploits. Now, in 1989, the fifty-year-old Maddy is transcribing the notebooks in which she recorded the adventures of the girl gang in the early 1950’s.

Margaret Ann “Legs” Sadovsky, FOXFIRE’s first in command and the inspiration for most of its adventures. Sixteen years old when she brings the gang of misfit...

Foxfire | Foxfire

At a glance:

Characters Discussed

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