The best-written recent literary fiction: Fox by Joyce Carol Oates
Read the opening pages below.
Every week we identify the best-written works of fiction, speculative fiction, and nonfiction from recent releases and shortlists for major prizes. We also publish guides by their authors on prose technique.
On the last Friday of the month we publish for paid subscribers the best-written book of the month. Our next pick will be a work of Catalonian speculative fiction.
PROLOGUE
There was never a time when I was not in love with Mr. Fox. There was never a time when Mr. Fox was not my life.
Because before Mr. Fox came into my life our souls knew each other in the time before where there is no time.
Because we are born of such knowing. Of the time before as when waking in the morning we carry the memory of the beautiful dreams we have lost in waking.
In the time before there is no time as we understand it on Earth, it is a great void like the ocean in which droplets of rain fall & vanish.
In the time before we are children together, there is no “age” that separates.
This, Mr. Fox explained.
Saying, My darling there will never be a time when our souls are not joined.
Saying, Our (secret) pledge will be, we will die for each other if that is asked of us.
We will never reveal our secret, we will die together & our secret will die with us.
For there is no Death in the time before. Souls are joined in love in the time before.
This, Mr. Fox explained.
To me only, Mr. Fox explained.
More on the book US/Canada»
UK/Ireland»
Literary fiction titles considered this month
Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Meet Me at the Crossroads by Megan Giddings
The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater
I Found Myself by Naguib Mahfouz; translated by Hisham Matar; photographed by Diana Matar
The Slip by Lucas Schaefer
Endling by Maria Reva
Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin
A Friend of Dorothy's by Richard Willett
Junah at the End of the World by Dan Leach
Bug Hollow by Michelle Huneven
Fox by Joyce Carol Oates
How to Dodge a Cannonball by Dennard Dayle
Fresh, Green Life by Sebastian Castillo
Bring the House Down by Charlotte Runcie
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine
Love Forms by Claire Adam
The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey
Submitting work to Auraist
We offer writers a fast-growing audience of tens of thousands of discerning readers, including many world-class writers, major publishers and literary agencies, and journalists at the highest-profile publications.
If we publish your work, we’ll invite you to answer our questions on prose style. Your answers will be considered for inclusion in the print publication of these pieces by many of the world’s best writers.
The following submissions are welcome:
Books published in the last year
Works serialised on Substack
Start the process by signing up for a paid subscription below. Then email your work to auraist@substack.com. It’s recommended that you familiarise yourself with the criteria we use for our picks. In submitting to Auraist, you are vouching that the work was not written in part or whole by AI.
We look forward to reading it.