A Brood of Foxes

I stumbled across this little book by accident.  After seeing it listed on a friend’s website and digging the cover – black background, red lettering, gray and black steampunk sketch of a fox wearing a morning coat and holding a zeppelin-esque balloon - I decided to give it a go.    

When it arrived, I was surprised to see it is only 87 pages long, but I ended up quite impressed with what Kristin Livdahl did in those few pages.  While the tone and the prose have Kelly Link written all over them (though perhaps less esoteric), it is no bad thing.  I personally love the fact that we’ve got all this new literary fantasy, or slip stream, or magical realism – whatever you want to call it – coming out of late.  Viva la trend, as long as it continues to be done this well. 

A Brood of Foxes tells the tale of a young girl, Joey, magically held captive on a run down farm by a kindly witch-woman-chicken named Mudhen, after she accidentally wanders into the farmyard through the open gate.  The open gate that others from “out there” can’t see.  She and Mudhen live untroubled by the outside world, have a lovely rapport with one another and the attendant farm animals, and though they work hard, they’re happy and content.  Until Joey begins dreaming of a boy, anyway.

Men always fuck things up, and there’s no exception here.  The dreams of a dark haired boy and his dark kisses prompt Joey to up and leave Mudhen and the magical farm.  Of course, she meets the dark haired boy, who turns out to be not a boy, but a fox, big fluffy tail and all.  He is a fox who wears turtle necks and can speak, but a fox nonetheless.  Joey soon finds that she wishes maybe his talking wasn’t such a pronounced skill, and, tired of arguing with him, she decided to go back to the farm.  She makes it, but finds her foxy boy sitting at the kitchen table, mouth full of feathers, and Mudhen gone.

No worries, though.  Fox didn’t eat Mudhen.  Through some super sleuthing worthy of Sherlock Holmes, Fox determines that Mudhen, though taken by force and fighting, is still alive.  He leads Joey on quite an adventure to find her, being sly and foxy all the while.  Along the way, he and Joey learn more about one another, and Joey figures out that boys aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, something Mudhen is more than happy to confirm when they find her again. 

Turns out, Mudhen’s got man problems of her own, see.  She’s been dragged off by one from her past, a broody type who is still pissed off that Mudhen didn’t want to stay with him forever and left him alone and sad in a creepy little village of non-witchy-chickens (boohoo).  He’s forced her to return to the creepy little village Mudhen escaped so long ago because everyone is dying of a mysterious illness, and he thinks Mudhen’s juju will set things to rights again.  Though operating under duress, Mudhen is too caring of a person to let the unexplained deaths continue, so she rolls up her sleeves, or whatever it is that witchy-chicken women wear on their arms, and dives in to help.      

And of course, things do get set to rights, but not until Joey and Fox arrive.  The source of the village creepiness is found and eradicated, with Joey playing a starring role in both in both events.  Fox disappears, of course, just about the time Joey falls for him.  The heartbreak teaches Joey some valuable lessons about herself, her life, the meaning of family, and love.  In the end, she has grown and matured from a pretty bratty girl to an admirable, strong woman.

It’s pretty typical fairy tale stuff, right?  Sure it is, but Livdahl gives it a nice twerk.  The settings are specific, yet have no real place and time, shifting from feeling as if they’re located in the modern day to feeling as if they exist in olden times.  The language she uses, as well as the dialogue, has the same effect, and while simple and to the point – it’s a fairy tale, after all – she does conjure up some beautiful imagery, and tackles some pretty deep issues.  Depression, self-worth, family, and love are all tackled and conquered, without ever losing the beautiful simplicity of the prose. 

Ladies being the saviors rather than the saved is nice new trend in this type of literature, and I’m happy to see it here, as well.  It’s done without force, without a big hammer smash to the skull, and though it really is the ladies who save the day, there’s a nice balance of good men, without whom the women would have had a little bit of a harder time.  Shades of gray are nice, and like the cover drawing, this story is full of them.

I would recommend this book.  It’s a quick read, and while not earth shattering or life changing, anyone who loves fairy tales or quirky slip stream-literary fantasy-fabulism-magical realism-blah-blah-blah will find this fulfilling.  It’s original enough to entice, yet comfortable enough to enjoy without too much work.  It appears to be the only book by Livdahl thus far, and more’s the pity.  I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for more.  They seem to run out of it periodically on Amazon, though they do have a Kindle version, so you might have to go directly to the publisher’s page at http://www.aqueductpress.com/current-pubs.html.