Synopses & Reviews
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New York Times Editors’ Choice: “A mind-bending romp through a gender-fluid, eighteenth century London...a joyous mash-up of literary genres shot through with queer theory and awash in sex, crime, and revolution.”
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New Yorker • HuffPost • Kirkus Reviews • Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award • Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize • “A dazzling tale of queer romance and resistance.” (Time)
Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess were the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found.
Until now. Reeling from heartbreak, a scholar named Dr. Voth discovers a long-lost manuscript — a gender-defying exposé of Jack and Bess’s adventures. Is Confessions of the Fox an authentic autobiography or a hoax? As Dr. Voth is drawn deeper into Jack and Bess’s tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation, it becomes clear that their fates are intertwined — and only a miracle will save them all.
Writing with the narrative mastery of Sarah Waters and the playful imagination of Nabokov, Jordy Rosenberg is an audacious storyteller of extraordinary talent.
Review
“A hat tip to Moby-Dick...a running footnote hall of mirrors to rival Borges...one of the most trenchant calls for progressive action that I have read in a very long time.” The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Confessions of the Fox is so goddamned good. Reading it was like an out-of-body experience....It should be in the personal canon of every queer and non-cis person. Read it.” Carmen Maria Machado, National Book Award finalist for Her Body and Other Parties
Review
“A cunning metafiction of vulpine versatility...an action-adventure tale with postmodern flourishes; an academic comedy spliced with period erotica; an intimate meditation on belonging.” Katy Waldman, The New Yorker
Adam P. on PowellsBooks.Blog
In the late summer of 2002, which is somehow nearly twenty years ago, I moved west across the Mississippi River, from St. Paul, Minnesota to Minneapolis, into a studio apartment just off Nicollet Avenue. I’d spent the previous three years living with friends I’d made while attending a nearby Christian college...
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