What drew me to the book Mr. Fox was the greenish blue cover that contrasted the rest on the shelf but what kept me reading was its intense language and will to make the reader question everything and dig deeper. Mr. Fox is a fictional story written by Helen Oyeymi that ties together separate short stories to reveal more about the overarching plot. The main character is St. John who is a writer that keeps brutally murdering the women in his stories. We are also introduced to his erratic wife Daphne and his imaginary muse Mary. Mary confronts St. John for killing women in his story and takes him on an imaginary journey going through his stories and inserting him as the characters. This causes him to start to question his morality and why he refuses to give his characters a happy ending. While on this journey, Daphne becomes suspicious of him having an affair and uncovers more about his and Mary's “Game.” I think this book was exciting and built a sense of intrigue, but my lack of understanding of some of the metaphors and allusions caused me to not able to appreciate it fully. I would say that this is the most challenging book I've read, not in terms of vocabulary but because of the complex story that jumps in and out of reality and a metaphorical world. Mr. Fox is very meta, but it embraces that self-awareness with playfulness and humor. I would give this story a ⅗ star and recommend it to those who enjoy literary analysis and complex storytelling.
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