Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang
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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.
Plot
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
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.
Foxfire begins to gain attention in school and around town. Several other girls ask to join the gang. One day, Foxfire members are involved in a schoolyard fight with boys from another gang. The girls run from the school and wind up going for a
Legs spends more than a year at Red Bank. After her release, Legs manages to rent an old house outside town and dubs it the "Foxfire Homestead". Most of the gang members move into the house, but they have difficulty earning enough money to support themselves with their legitimate jobs. The gang eventually begins stealing and
When the kidnapping plan goes wrong, it results in the breakup of the Foxfire gang and the mysterious disappearance of Legs herself.
Films
The 1996 film version of Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, titled
Another adaption of the novel, Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, stars Raven Adamson as Legs, and directed by French director Laurent Cantet, was released in Europe in December 2012 and has been cited as being a more faithful adaptation of the book.
External links