Foxfire is an exciting story, stylishly written, but lacking depth. You watch, from a remove, as the narrator watches 35 years later, with no flashes of insight into the inner lives of these girls.
I always thought that Fact was to explain things and Fiction was to explain people. Having discovered narrative non-fiction, I no longer make that distinction. As an illustration, I have read two books in the past year, both non-fiction, which were what I wanted Foxfire to be. One was Hot House by Pete Early, who was given the run of Leavenworth and spent two years interviewing the inmates. What starts as curiosity on the part of the reader becomes, over time, a recognition of Other. It's as though we are two species: those of us whom we think of as normal and those that wind up in maximum security prisons, both criminals and guards. We gain an insight into an amazing and savage culture that bears no relation to the way the rest of us live, think and feel. The fact that it makes sense in its own terms indicates how intractable the divide is and why we will always need prisons.
The second book is Random Families by Adrian LeBlanc. LeBlanc virtually lived with a number of girls in a tough neighbourhood in the Bronx, following their growing up, their lives, their boyfriends, their families. By the end of the book, we have empathy and understanding into the choices these girls make, even as we ache for them to make better ones.
“God,” said Corbusier, “ is in the details.” And so, he might have added, is insight. Foxfire is too superficial to teach us anything.
Reviewed by Margot
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