Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang

Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang

Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates approximately a charity of minor girls in upstate New York in the 1950s who form a gang called Foxfire.

Plot[abbreviate]
The scrap record takes the form of a memoir by Madeleine "Maddy" or "Monkey" Wirtz. Maddy is a fifty-year-pass astronomer's scarf, but as a youngster girl was one of the five indigenous members of Foxfire. This society included Betty "Goldie" Siegfried, Loretta "Lana" Maguire, Elizabeth "Rita" O'Hagan, and their leader, Margaret "Legs" Sadovsky. The girls all grew taking place together in the fictional town of Hammond, New York (the same feel Oates used for her 1990 novel Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart).

Legs is an gymnastic, charismatic girl considering than feminist ideals just just about female arrogance and solidarity. She holds a Foxfire trigger ritual in checking account to January 1, 1953, involving unnamed tattoos of the gang's symbol, a red ember. Soon afterwards, Legs announces her first plot for the gang: the public humiliation of their high private school math studious. Mr. Buttinger has taken an inappropriate quantity in Rita, often mocking her in class and requiring her to stay after bookish for "disciplinary" sessions where he gropes her breasts. This first Foxfire adventure is non-violent; the girls paint graffiti messages re Mr. Buttinger's car such as "I TEACH MATH & TICKLE TITS". His unsigned now public, Mr. Buttinger is openly laughed at in scholastic and speedily retires from teaching every.

Encouraged by this first victory, Foxfire becomes increasingly bold in their activities. Although much of their to the front deeds be the matter along in the midst of little-scale vandalism and shoplifting, they as well as brutally exasperation Maddy's uncle, Wimpy Wirtz, after he sexually assaults her and repeatedly cons her out of receiving his old-fashioned typewriter. Yet Legs with insists that the gang receive an appeal in organization, anonymously donating money to poor people in their community. They along with successfully upheaval a local pet shop to decrease 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.

Foxfire begins to profit attention in university and on town. Several supplementary girls ask to partner the gang. One day, Foxfire members are working in a schoolyard scuffle in the future boys from other gang. The girls manage from the university and wind up going for a joyride in a car they locate left when the keys in the ignition. This leads to a police chase that ends in a wreck for the Foxfire girls. None are seriously insulted, but Legs is sent to Red Bank, a woman's correctional knack. The tally Foxfire members operational in the incident are placed following mention to probation.

Legs spends on zenith of a year at Red Bank. After her reprieve, Legs manages to rent an obsolete ablaze outside town and dubs it the "Foxfire Homestead". Most of the gang members have an effect on into the domicile, but they have complexity earning sufficient grant to preserve themselves bearing in mind their legitimate jobs. The gang eventually begins stealing and extorting maintenance from older men. Eventually, Legs comes taking place gone a take goal for the "resolute stubborn" of their financial problems: the kidnapping for ransom of a affluent local man.

When the kidnapping intend goes muddled, it results in the breakup of the Foxfire gang and the perplexing desertion of Legs herself.

Films[gate]

The 1996 film version of Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, titled Foxfire, stars Angelina Jolie as Legs. The film differs from the novel in many ways, most notably the alter of atmosphere from 1950s upstate New York to the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s. In the film, most of the Foxfire members come from to your liking suburban families; in the novel, they are enthusiastic class girls from the "incorrect side of the tracks" whose families anxiety from domestic problems such as child abuse and alcoholism. The novel also covers a time of about three and a half years, even if the film's conduct yourself takes place during the course of a few weeks.

Another adaption of the novel, directed by French director Laurent Cantet, was released in Europe in December 2012 and has been cited as sentient thing a more faithful becoming accustomed of the record.

External partners[log on]
"Outlaw Girls almost the Rampage", a review from The New York Times
FOXFIRE, a follower site for the scrap book
[hide] v t e
Works by Joyce Carol Oates
The Wonderland Quartet
A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967) Expensive People (1968) Them (1969) Wonderland (1971)
The Gothic Saga
Bellefleur (1980) A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982) Mysteries of Winterthurn (1984) My Heart Laid Bare (1998) The Accursed (2013)
Other novels
With Shuddering Fall (1964) Do following Me What You Will (1973) The Assassins: A Book of Hours (1975) Childwold (1976) Son of the Morning (1978) Cybele (1979) Unholy Loves (1979) Angel of Light (1981) Solstice (1985) Marya: A Life (1986) You Must Remember This (1987) American Appetites (1989) Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (1990) Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993) What I Lived For (1994) Zombie (1995) We Were the Mulvaneys (1996) Man Crazy (1997) Broke Heart Blues (1999) Blonde (2000) Middle Age: A Romance (2001) I'll Take You There (2002) The Tattooed Girl (2003) The Falls (2004) Missing Mom (2005) Black Girl / White Girl (2006) The Gravedigger's Daughter (2007) My Sister, My Love (2008) Little Bird of Heaven (2009) A Fair Maiden (2010) Mudwoman (2012) Daddy Love (2013) Carthage (2014)
Novellas
The Triumph of the Spider Monkey (1976) I Lock My Door Upon Myself (1990) The Rise of Life upon Earth (1991) Black Water (1992) First Love: A Gothic Tale (1996) Beasts (2001) Rape: A Love Story (2003) The Corn Maiden: A Love Story (2005) Evil Eye: Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong (2013)
Short version collections
By the North Gate (1963) Upon the Sweeping Flood And Other Stories (1966) The Wheel of Love and Other Stories (1970) Marriages and Infidelities (1972) The Goddess and Other Women (1974) The Hungry Ghosts: Seven Allusive Comedies (1974) Night-Sides (1977) The Assignation (1988) Where is Here? (1992) Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque (1994) Demon and Other Tales (1996) Will You Always Love Me? And Other Stories (1996) The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque (1998) Faithless: Tales of Transgression (2001) I Am No One You Know: Stories (2004) The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2006) High Lonesome: New & Selected Stories, 1966-2006 (2006) The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2007) Wild Nights! (2008) Dear Husband (2009) Sourland: Stories (2010) Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (2011) The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares (2011) Black Dahlia & White Rose (2012)
Poetry
Women In Love and Other Poems (1968) Anonymous Sins & Other Poems (1969) Love and Its Derangements (1970) Angel Fire (1973) The Fabulous Beasts (1975) Women Whose Lives Are Food, Men Whose Lives Are Money (1978) Invisible Woman: New and Selected Poems, 19701982 (1982) The Time Traveler (1989) Tenderness (1996)
Young adult fiction
Big Mouth & Ugly Girl (2002) Small Avalanches and Other Stories (2003) Freaky Green Eyes (2003) Sexy (2005) After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (2006)
As "Lauren Kelly"
Take Me, Take Me With You (2003) The Stolen Heart (2005) Blood Mask (2006)
As "Rosamond Smith"
Lives of the Twins (1987) Soul/Mate (1989) Nemesis (1990) Snake Eyes (1992) You Can't Catch Me (1995) Double Delight (1997) Starr Bright Will Be With you Soon (1999) The Barrens (2001)