Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang
Cover of first edition, first printing (Dutton, 1993)
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| Author | Joyce Carol Oates |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Dutton |
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Publication date
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1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates about a group of teenage girls in upstate New York in the 1950s who form a gang called Foxfire.
The book takes the form of a memoir by Madeleine "Maddy" or "Monkey" Wirtz. Maddy is a fifty-year-old astronomer's assistant, but as a young girl was one of the five original members of Foxfire. This group included Betty "Goldie" Siegfried, Loretta "Lana" Maguire, Elizabeth "Rita" O'Hagan, and their leader, Margaret "Legs" Sadovsky. The girls all grew up together in the fictional town of Hammond, New York (the same setting Oates used for her 1990 novel Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart).
Legs is an athletic, charismatic girl with feminist ideals about female pride and solidarity. She holds a Foxfire initiation ritual on January 1, 1953, involving secret tattoos of the gang's symbol, a red flame. Soon afterwards, Legs announces her first plan for the gang: the public humiliation of their high school math teacher. Mr. Buttinger has taken an inappropriate interest in Rita, often mocking her in class and requiring her to stay after school for "disciplinary" sessions where he gropes her breasts. This first Foxfire adventure is non-violent; the girls paint graffiti messages on Mr. Buttinger's car such as "I TEACH MATH & TICKLE TITS". His secret now public, Mr. Buttinger is openly laughed at in school and quickly retires from teaching altogether.
Encouraged by this first victory, Foxfire becomes increasingly bold in their activities. Although much of their early activities involve small-scale vandalism and shoplifting, they also brutally beat Maddy's uncle, Wimpy Wirtz, after he sexually assaults her and repeatedly cons her out of receiving his old typewriter. Yet Legs also insists that the gang take an interest in charity, anonymously donating money to needy people in their community. They also successfully protest a local pet shop to end the cruel treatment of the animals for sale there, in the process acquiring a "silvery-haired raccoon-faced husky" named Toby who becomes Foxfire's mascot.
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