Dec 30

Dec 30 Fox & I

Author: Catherine Raven
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

A solitary woman’s inspiring, moving, surprising, and often funny memoir about the transformative power of her unusual friendship with a wild fox, a new window onto the natural world, and the introduction of a remarkable literary talent.

Catherine Raven left home at 15, fleeing an abusive father and an indifferent mother. Drawn to the natural world, for years she worked as a ranger in National Parks, at times living in her run-down car (which lacked a reverse gear), on abandoned construction sites, or camping on a piece of land in Montana she bought from a colleague. She managed to put herself through college and then graduate school, eventually earning a Ph.D. in biology.

Yet she never felt at home with people, and though she worked at various universities and taught field classes in the National Parks, she built a house on a remote plot of land in Montana and, except when teaching, spoke to no one. One day, she realized that the fox who had been appearing at her house was coming by every day at 4:15. He became a regular visitor, who eventually sat near her as she read to him from The Little Prince or Dr. Seuss. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, but as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself—and he became her friend. But friends cannot always save each other from the uncontained forces of nature.

Though this is a story of survival, it is also a poignant and dramatic tale of living in the wilderness and coping with inevitable loss. This uplifting fable-like true story about the friendship of a woman and a wild fox not only reveals the power of friendship and our interconnectedness with the natural world but is an original, imaginative, and beautiful work that introduces a stunning new voice.

TL;DR Review

Fox & I is a unique, heartfelt little memoir. Although it didn’t quite hold my attention all the way through, the prose is excellent and I ‘m glad I read it.

For you if: You like memoir and nature nonfiction.

Full Review

“I realised that a fox, like a rainbow and every other gift from Nature, had an intrinsic value that was quite independent of its longevity. After that, whenever I questioned devoting so much time to an animal whose lifespan barely exceeded the blink of an eye, I remembered rainbows.”

I hadn’t heard of Fox & I until I got it in a monthly book subscription box, but the synopsis immediately caught my eye: a memoir by a woman who lived in the middle of nowhere and befriended a fox by reading to it from The Little Prince. I love memoirs and had been reading more nature nonfiction lately, so I decided to give it a try.

Catherine Raven has never felt at ease around other people or at home in the regular rhythms of society, but she can certainly write great sentences. The book is quiet and feels different from most memoirs, and it’s a beautiful little story with equal parts sadness and joy. So basically, it had everything I love, and I wanted to love it overall. But for some reason, I struggled to stay engaged and I found my attention waning, even after I went back and started over. I’m not sure if that was the book or me and my mindset at the time, though, and I’m still glad I read it.

If you think this has all the right ingredients for you, I would definitely still say you should give it a try.