Blog Tour: Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton (Penguin Canada)

Published: September 27, 2011

Pages: 256

Received: ARC from publisher for blog tour/review

Buy Now: Amazon | Penguin

From a prizewinning young writer, a brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration.

Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently.

Mary challenges Mr. Fox to join her in stories of their own devising; and in different times and places, the two of them seek each other, find each other, thwart each other, and try to stay together, even when the roles they inhabit seem to forbid it. Their adventures twist the fairy tale into nine variations, exploding and teasing conventions of genre and romance, and each iteration explores the fears that come with accepting a lifelong bond. Meanwhile, Daphne becomes convinced that her husband is having an affair, and finds her way into Mary and Mr. Fox's game. And so Mr. Fox is offered a choice: Will it be a life with the girl of his dreams, or a life with an all-too-real woman who delights him more than he cares to admit?

The extraordinarily gifted Helen Oyeyemi has written a love story like no other. Mr. Fox is a magical book, endlessly inventive, as witty and charming as it is profound in its truths about how we learn to be with one another.

Review:

At first I had no idea what to think of this book, but as I read on I realized it was like a handful of short stories all trying to tell you how the things we sometimes believe to be fiction are sometimes the things that are more realistic.  And it spoke about love.

Some of the short stories really could have been their own novel, the premise of many were so appealing that I almost forgot that I was reading about relationship between the Foxes - St. John and his wife Daphne, and St. John and his muse Mary Foxe.

 

Likes:

-the idea that each short story involved love of different sorts (mother/son, lovers, soul mates, friends)

-the fact that the author was showing so many facets of love that are often overlooked

-that St. John Fox had an imaginary friend (at his age) and was kind of in love with her

-the ending was rather interesting between St. John, Daphne and Mary and I wonder what transpired afterwards

-Mary's character was quite quirky and fun, she brought a little humour to the book

Dislikes:

-the way the stories did not really flow together, one minute you are in one story and the next it another time and place (a little jarring)

-I think the whole book was just a little beyond what I was expecting and that it may have changed how I looked at the story/stories

About the Author:

HELEN OYEYEMI is the author of The Icarus Girl; The Opposite House, which was a nominee for the 2008 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and White is for Witching, which won a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award. Mr. Fox is her fourth novel.

BLOG TOUR SCHEDULE:

Tales of a Ranting Ginger  - Oct 24
Snowdrop Dreams of Books - Oct 25
Just a Lil’ Lost - Oct 26
In the Next Room - Oct 27
Evie Bookish - Oct 28
Florence in Print - Oct 31
A Bookworm’s World -  Nov 1
Krystal’s Stellar Book Blog - Nov 2
The Indextrious Reader - Nov 3
Hands and Home - Nov 4