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Joyce Carol Oates, author of Fox

Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community --- including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy --- begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.

Week of May 18, 2026

Paperback releases for the week of May 18th include THE RIVER IS WAITING by Wally Lamb, which tells the propulsive story of a young father who, after an unbearable tragedy, reckons with the possibility of atonement for the unforgivable; Megan Abbott's EL DORADO DRIVE, a simmering, atmospheric novel of friendship and betrayal that follows a women-led pyramid scheme in suburban Detroit; GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE, a sweeping novel from Emily Henry that finds two writers competing for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve; THINGS IN NATURE MERELY GROW, Yiyun Li’s remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance as she considers the loss of her son, James; and MURDER IN THE DOLLHOUSE  by Rich Cohen, a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Jennifer Dulos and the aftershocks that rattled a wealthy suburb.