A subversive reimagined historical fiction, with a focus on non-cis-white-male characters for a change - I enjoyed this but maybe more for the concept than the execution. Still I hope to see more like this in the future!

I wasn’t able to get into the book! It sounded really good, but just couldn’t hook me. I’ll give it a three star, since I didn’t read it.

The description made this book sound really interesting. The execution however was terrible. I had to force myself to finish it. I didn’t enjoy the writing, it was confusing, you keep getting ya led back and forth between the two stories. Just yuck!

But thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book.

A well written romp through time exploring all gender theories from the beginning of time. A fresh voice on old themes.

This story is actually two stories. One is interesting- full of the struggles of being of color, and trans, in the 18th century. The other is full of pontificating and grandizing. It was hard to read, so I gave up.

As much as I really wanted to love this book, sadly I didn't even read the entirety. I also received an ARC copy of it from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

I wanted to like this book because the main character trans, and the book is historical fiction. But sadly I just found the book to be so confusing it was unreadable. Maybe it was just me not vibing with the writing style, maybe it was something else. I don't know.

All I can say is I was so confused I had to stop reading. I really like good world development, but when I have to flip to the end of the book every three sentences to look up a word, it gets tiring after awhile. Maybe footnotes on the actual pages would have been a little easier? This could just have been an issue with the kindle ARC. Also the footnotes made by the other character, Dr. Voth, were just plain boring and I don't think they added much to the story. 

In the end I quit and I gave the book 1 star on Goodreads.

When I first saw the description of this book, I thought it was going to be similar to Mackenzi Lee's book, "The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue," which I loved and absolutely devoured.

While "Confessions of the Fox" is definitely a creative idea, it really didn't work for me. I've never been a big fan of the whole is-what-you're-reading-true-or-simply-a-construct-of-the-narrator's-imagination concept, and this book trades on that idea a lot. I thought that Jack, in particular, was a fascinating character, but I kept stumbling over the idea that what I was reading might not actually have happened, and that made me lose focus quite a bit.

Jordy Rosenberg did a terrific job with this idea, but the story as a whole just didn't work for me.

NetGalley and Random House provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Confessions of the Fox book is a delightful queering of history. I remember requesting an ARC because it was listed in NetGalley's queer section, and was surprised by the depth of work put into this novel. I don't think I've read queer historical fiction before, and the layering of intersectionality (as in, not a purely white/cis/hetero background) was refreshing. I will warn against getting into this book as an easy read, because not only is the primary story itself layered, but the second narrative expressed in footnotes leave a reader with a lot to keep track of. I was unfamiliar with the myth of Jack Sheppard going into this but was very taken with the dirty, raw, emotional undercurrents surrounding Jack's identity.
I love multilayered narratives, however this book was a lot of work at first between reading footnotes on a mobile device and the historical language used. I think the connection of woven and queer narratives worked well in this book. I'd be curious to know how much of the references in the novels connect to real literature and events (I looked up some of them, but not all). Overall a very interesting read, but one I had to break up in parts because of the way it forced me to slow down my reading.

I really struggled to get into this book several times before giving up. I usually enjoy stories where a person who everyone thinks they know turns out to be LGBT. However, usually, this is with a character that everyone knows and has been introduced to. I didn't feel this was the case here. I didn't feel like I really got to know any of the characters in the parts I read when I tried to read this book. It was also confusing where there are the notes being made and keeping them separate from the main story. I didn't see any grammar or spelling errors and liked that it was written as if from the 18th century. However, I just couldn't get into and enjoy this book as I had hoped to.

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Mmm, I really had a hard time staying focused on this one. The premise of a Jack Sheppard actually being a trans man (well, probably an intersex person for starters, considering the genitalia alluded to here and there when he’s concerned) was definitely good, since I would like to see this kind of character more often in general. Not to mention my soft spot for rogue-type protagonists, and the 18th seedy London depicted throughout the novel.

The relationship between Bess and Jack was interesting in many ways: Bess’s childhood, Jack’s indenture, both characters having been victims of men in authority and now finding freedom and power with and in each other… The novel explores acceptance in a way that I like, not as something that comes to be, but as something that is : there is no “period of adaptation” during which Bess learns to love Jack the way he is: she loves him, it’s natural, they’re two human beings attracted to each other. No need for that condescending “acceptance” that too often is, in fact, patronising and not so accepting when you think about it. “He’s always been there,” indeed, and then they find each other. Just like Voth has always been there, and many other people that tend to get ignored because it’s more “convenient” that way.

However, I found the academic-sounding footnotes rather disrupting, and to be honest, I wasn’t really interested in the running commentary when it diverged from Voth’s own personal life (probably because I haven’t read the works mentioned in said footnotes, so whatever clever ‘a-ha!’ moments there were to catch, I completely missed them). I guess it takes quite a lot of focus to read this story, and it’s not something I’ve had much this summer. Perhaps I should’ve read it at another time.

Another problem I had was how Jack’s story felt more about concepts than about actual characters—developing some events more, showing more of his ties with Aurie for instance, or more moments when he learnt his trade, would’ve helped flesh him. This would’ve been a good way of highlighting the message “we’ve always been here”: as human and not simply literary beings.

So, my 2 stars are mostly because I know I wasn’t the right audience for this book at the moment, not because I think this novel is “bad”.

So many of the classics are being rewritten and I have sampled more than a few. Some have been more successful than others. So when I saw Confessions of the Fox had some resemblance to Threepenny Opera and I am more than familiar with the piece I thought sure, why not. This was so not for me on every level. I plodded through over one hundred pages and decided to wave the white flag.

I obviously missed the import, rollicking fun and bawdy times. What I didn’t miss was every reference, archaic or otherwise to human genitalia- just a bit much and footnoted as well. Maybe I will give this another chance at some future date but for now I am done.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Random House for which I thank them.

[Triggers and warnings: misgendering, racism, blood, medical horror, violence, consensual sexual content]

I confess that I’ve never heard of Jack Sheppard before picking up this book. I just assumed both he, and Bess, were figments of the author inserting fictional characters into real history with sprinkles of facts thrown in for good measure. I didn't even really suspect that Jack was a real person until I was somewhat through Part 1, so that's a little embarrassing. But I'm glad this novel was my first foray into Sheppard and his life, 'cause if I ever run into him again, this version of him and his story is what I'll be thinking about and what will stick the longest in my mind. And we could do for some more queer retellings of myths and lore.

I like the cover, particularly the detail of Jack's legs sticking out of a window, but it's the plot that really hand me picking up this novel.

Plot and Writing
The story follows two lines of narrative: one is the life of Dr. R. Voth, a university professor, after he acquires a never-before-seen manuscript outlining the true life of Sheppard with shockingly groundbreaking details related to him, those who’d been around him and the world he'd inhabited; the other is the myth-ified life of Jack Sheppard, a famous 18th century thief and jail-breaker, described in said manuscript. As someone reading the tale of the infamous criminal for the first time, I found the breaking out of jail and stealing aspects of the plot to be sort of interesting although there were times I got lost in the language. Certain words that are normally not capitalized were capitalized and I guess that threw me off, as well as seeing many unfamiliar words. Luckily, Voth’s footnotes kept me from getting too lost. I thought it was really interesting design choice to have Voth’s narrative in the footnotes; it was something I’d known going into the reading and I wasn’t sure how I would like it but I ended up enjoying it more than I thought, particularly when Voth would reference other texts related to history, medicine and queer identity in a manner familiar to those in academia.

More than reading about the criminal exploits, I was really interested in reading about Jack existing as a trans man in 18th century England with Bess—his equally infamous partner-in-crime and lover who apparently is always depicted as a white woman—being portrayed as a woman of colour from South Asia living in the same environment as Jack but with her own battles to fight. I enjoyed reading about their lives and their love. Equally, I got caught up in Voth’s clashes with the corporations who want to exploit the manuscript for their own gains and his struggle to understand this document he’s discovered—which may or may not be a hoax--and what tale it’s truly trying to tell. The overall plot is interesting and at times a bit slow, and the ending of both narrative lines really requires a high level of suspension of disbelief, but the ultimate outcome of Voth’s examination of the manuscript was both surprising and rewarding.

Characters
I found Jack to be pretty relatable despite the swashbuckling reputation he gained during his lifetime. I think most people, whether they fall under the LGBT+ banner or not, will understand the anxiety he feels over his identity and purpose in life. His desire to steal stems more from his fear of something being misused or abandoned entirely than the actual thrill of crime or greed, and the way it’s described as inanimate objects speaking directly to him is both interesting and a little spooky. His bizarre ability to sense when things he wants to steal are near or far plays in nicely with the “Jack Sheppard the Myth” rather than Jack Sheppard as the real person. At times, he could be spoiled and near-sighted but as someone who doesn’t read enough literature with trans characters (shame, shame) it was eye-opening for me to see how he described his trans-ness and dealing with the body he had.

I really liked Bess in particular. She was so smart and such a broad thinker, so she balanced Jack’s impulsiveness well. She was also more careful and cautious, knowing her place as a sex worker and as a South Asian person was very precarious, and Jack’s occasional lack of insight into her particular struggles was pretty frustrating. But despite her carefulness, I liked how Jack’s actions appear to have influenced her own steps to fix what was wrong. I get the sense from Voth’s notes that Bess isn’t a character that is elaborated enough when others tell Jack’s story, which is unsurprising but makes her character in this novel all the more fascinating.

Voth, our present day protagonist, is someone we get to know only through his footnotes, which serve both to add detail and context, and as a window into his own life regarding his identity as a trans man who deeply loves women, his razed love life and his struggles with a large pharmaceutical company that desire the analysis of the manuscript to market their own products. There were plenty of times where I didn’t want Voth to just roll over and do what he was told, but his actions were understandable, and his way of telling us about his failed marriage and his passionate feelings towards this document that he found by chance were so sweeping and feverish.

Jack’s villain is Jonathan Wild, a constable who keeps a rolodex of criminals at his beck and call. Apparently, Wild is also a prominent figure in Sheppard’s fables and here, he is a pretty lousy guy, though I never really felt threatened by him much. It was only at the end when we really got a sense of how smart he was and how vicious he could be but by then it wasn’t as impactful. Voth’s villain is the P-Quad Publishers and Pharmaceuticals, a company interested in selling ‘organic’ pharmaceuticals, including hormones direct at trans people, by way of packaging their hormone products with the ‘authentic’ memoir of a prominent historical trans person—analyzed, with little pay and many threats, by Voth. Between them and Wild, I bristled more at anything their surrogate, Sullivan, said or inserted into the footnotes; corporate villains tend to bug me more than individual villains, and P-Quad was no exception. They weren’t perfect villains—they were too cartoony—but they were dislikable.

Conclusion
I enjoyed the book though it was at times hard to read and follow. I felt connected to the characters, and cared enough of them to see their stories to the end, and I was happy with the conclusion to the mystery of whether the confessions were authentic or not. I would recommend this novel to anyone who liked historical fiction—a genre I don’t typically pick up—made interesting and significant with queer politic and identify.

Dr. Voth is a professor who had come across the apparent autobiography of Jack Sheppard and Bess Khan, two figures within London's underworld in the early 1700's. He annotates the work, discovering facts about Jack and Bess that haven't before been seen in academic circles: Jack is actually transgender, and Bess is a woman of color.

This is an interesting style of storytelling that I don't read very often. In the Kindle version, the footnotes at the end of the chapters are hypertext, making it easy to jump back and forth to see the definitions of the slang at the time. The footnotes themselves are academic styled initially, referencing different works; while there is an actual bibliography, I didn't check to see if these works cited in the discussion footnotes are real ones. A lot of the works cited in Danielewski's "House of Leaves" are invented, but the twisting footnotes of that book are a typesetter's nightmare and added to the hallucinatory and horror experience of that story. Like that book, the footnotes left by Dr. Voth become more tangled up in his own life, so that we have a story running parallel to that of Jack and Bess in London's underground.

There is an underlying discourse about academia, particularly when it's influenced by Big Pharma/military complexes. It's definitely a point that comes up a lot, particularly when the interest that they take in Jack and Bess' tale is more interested in tawdry details and trying to monetize that history while somehow erasing the queer history in it. Dr. Voth's personal history comes up more and more as the story goes on, and there's a distinct paranoia in it that really did remind me of one of the footnote storylines in Danielewski's book. The narrative goes off the rails a bit at that point, and to be honest, I was less and less interested in Dr. Voth's story than in Jack and Bess'.

I don't think you have to be transgender to feel empathy for the horrible situations that Jack and Bess go through. There are certainly enough sexist, racist, and classist aspects of their tale to empathize with. The history of disadvantaged and minorities have long been erased from the narrative, so this book does help put some of it back in. Transitioning is difficult in any time period, but to read about Jack transitioning in 1724 will likely help those in the process now. You're not alone, then, and others have survived that part of their lives. This means that you'll be able to as well, and that's an important takeaway to have.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Content Warning: Racism, Transphobia, Ameteur Surgery, Prision, Crimes Against Humanity

Reminds me of The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman and The Gentleman by Forrest Leo with the story in the footnotes, the unique slang, and critique on society. Only Confessions of the Fox is from a trans*male perspective and blows everything else out of the water.

It's only 352 pages but there's so so much inside and I highly recommend taking it slow. It's worth savoring and really digesting it. This is something worth studying and re-reading for sure.

It's a great story within a story that I love to death. Jack and Bess are amazing and adorable. Dr. Voth is the relatable awkward academic torn between survival and morals. I had no idea what would happen next and I was so excited to find out.

It's intersectional balm against our fucked up capitalist society in a way Robin Hood couldn't even dream of.

I've never read, studied, or honestly heard of The Threepenny Opera before. I'm a laywoman feminist. But I had no trouble picking up what Rosenberg is putting down in here. There's also an impressive list of resources in the back that I will be checking out to help my education along.

I put this down about a third of the way through, a bit annoyed and frustrated by the footnoting researcher, but picked it up again and am glad I did. A truly inventive and compelling read that, although not perfect, brings us a fresh and bold voice for gender queer liberation. Read through Netgalley.com

I must admit I had some difficulties with this book.. As a librarian, the selling of complete sections of the library made no sense, because that is not how academic librarians work. They carefully deselect and condense, even when clearing out space for whole floors to be renovated. And with my rather extensive background in languages, including German, the supposed common root of the German "Verlust" and "Lust" gave me the impression that the author's homework for the book was not completed. In spite of appearances, those words may have no common root at all (Verlust is the nominative companion to verlieren, and refers to loss, while the author accurately states that Lust refers to desire. The meanings are totally different. Even if the two were to share a common root, which is not evident except by appearance, it would be meaningless. Common usage, not the root, has by far the greater implications for meaning.) Perhaps I am being picky, but why put your book in the form of an annotated manuscript if you don't do it convincingly?

Confessions of the Fox is a vibrant historical fiction centered around the life of Jack Sheppard. Sold into servitude as a child, P spends years imagining a different life; one not only of freedom from indenture, but freedom of body and identity. When P meets and falls in love with Bess, a prostitute (or doxy, in the lingo of the book), she is pulled into the London underworld, transiting into a life as Jack Sheppard, the famous goal-breaker and thief extraordinaire, the person that has she’s always had hidden inside and felt she truly was. Throughout the novel, Jack and Bess get into a number of scrapes and adventures together, all while illuminating a history that has long been cis-white-washed, and learning to love themselves and each other along the way. As an added layer the entire story is rife with footnotes from Dr. Voth, the contemporary academic who found this transcript and is translating for us, the reader. His notes on/additions to the text, as well as the commentary related to his personal life, provide perspective to and parallel Jack’s story a way that makes for a much more profound reading experience.

First and foremost, I need to spoiler alert that this is the most fantastically bawdy book I’ve read in some time. And that is probably an understatement. The terms for body parts, sexual acts, and more are tossed about often and colorfully. The sheer volume of them was almost mind-boggling (in a good way). At times, since things are mostly described in historical vocabulary, there were euphemisms that had me laughing out loud. So it’s a different kind of bawdy than a typical romance novel, but definitely one of the most defining pieces of the book. Moving past that surface lewdness, this was actually a phenomenally intellectual novel. In fact, for full disclosure, there were a few times that the more philosophical explorations lost me a bit. This could be as a result of me skimming them, which is a bad habit I have when reading, or because I was reading this novel on a plane and was quite tired at times, or just simply because these discussions were truly over my head. Regardless, the amount of research involved in writing this book was clear throughout – prodigious and impressive.

The mix of these two types of styles, academic and vulgar, might seem like an odd pairing, but it works wonderfully in this case. Since one of the main topics of the story, for Jack, for our translator Dr. Voth, and in the dramatic encounters/struggles experienced by them both, is based in gender identity, it really makes sense. The philosophy behind gender identity, the individual right to feel the way you want about who you are and the ability to present that intrinsic persona to the world in whatever way you want, is something incredibly internal. The intellectual side of the writing represents that personal/inner piece. On the other hand, there is the coarse language of the London underbelly, which is all about the physical and the sexual, which is the side of gender identity that is less…pretty? And I do not mean that in regards to looks or as a judgement on the physical appearance of any gender-non-conforming person. I mean that to refer to the way gender identity is treated by society, in the way that anyone who identifies as queer, transgender, or is intersex, has always been considered “less.” And, with those last two, the obvious connection between crudity and the gross fascination of the cis- population with the body parts of transgender and/or intersex people is addressed head-on throughout the novel (and expertly handled, may I add). It’s horrifying and terrible, but it is historically (and presently) accurate. And of course, the interplay between the two, internal/academic and external/vulgar, is difficult, stress-inducing (to say the least) and otherwise, exemplary of the struggles faced daily by anyone identifying as queer. This novel tackles an incredible breadth of difficult topics and themes in a proficient and remarkable way.

I don’t know if most people read the afterwards, but this is one book where I highly recommend it. The author talks through the extensive research and work that went into this novel, both on his own and collaboratively. Particularly of note is his discussion about his goal of shining a light on the parts of history that are completely, as I mentioned earlier, cis-white-washed, and providing a history to people today that have truly never had one for themselves. I realize that’s pretty much all of history (which he mentions as well), but this novel is definitely a beautiful start at working to combat that. Although this topic comes up throughout the novel in Dr. Voth’s footnotes, the author really elaborates and connects it to “real” life in the afterward. It’s an inspiring and moving reflection and I appreciate both it, and the author’s efforts, from the bottom of my soul.

Overall, this novel is a gorgeous piece of writing. One that it is clear the author poured his all into. It’s fully realized, exceptionally thoughtful, and beyond significant. Although, as I mentioned, at times the philosophy itself got to be a bit too much for me, the action and emotion are both omnipresent enough to balance that out, and I found this book both page-turning-ly enjoyable and thoroughly educational. As the story builds to the denouement, both in the past and the present, we are left with an ending that, for both, serves as a magnificent metaphor for the joy and relief of finding a place where you belong, are accepted, and can be your true self. Everyone, EVERYONE, deserves that.

Let’s not talk about how many things I highlighted while reading (SO MANY). Enjoy this selection:

“There are some things you can only see through tears.”

“There are moments that do not arise as the result of Conscious determination or thought. Such moments – far more than plann’d ones – are those that shape the course of a Life to come. Such moments alter a being in ways that plotting, synthesizing, and future-izing can never do. That is to say, a reaction to Chance is the only method for developing character.”

“They take everything from you. Even your imagination. Then and now.”

“Whatever Blur he’s lived in for every year and every moment up to this one, was lifting and sparkling into Nothingness like fog in the sun. All of Jack’s molecules were scrambled and rearranged, and something new was taking shape. Someone new. He was becoming Jack Sheppard. He was entering History.”

“And then he fell into sleep Unseen. As he did every night. Every single night, like a Pebble falling silently to the bottom of a dark Pond. Alone. Alone. Always alone.”

“Why couldn’t his own Ceiling change color, deepen, shoot through the sun? … Would the black-capped horizon of his Imagination never prism into color?”

“…would spray out of him, would fog the room with a million crimson Petals, with a wave of soft silver gunshot, with a rolling meadow of grass-green fire, heaving under them and pouring over them and it would bury them, in the best ways, together, and alive.”

“I’m editing this for us – those of us who’ve been dropped from some moonless sky to wander the world. Those of us who have to guess – wrongly over and over (until we get it right? Please god) – what a “home” might feel like. So forget the held ones just for a second, they’re doing fine; I’m speaking to you – to us – to those of us who learned at a young age never to turn around, never to look back at the nothing that’s there to catch us when we fall.”

“Sometimes – albeit rarely – but especially when one is young, Revelry is the verso face of misery and Terror.”

“She breathed life down my throat – she with the tip of her tongue, like a Hummingbird giving syrup back to the flavor – and just as some flowers open only at night, as did I open only with her tongue in my mouth.”

“None of us will be free unless all of us are free.”

“Robbers, Rebels, Lovers. Wait. Wait under waters she said. History will find us. History will avenge us all.”

“When a woman regards you with her inevitable Expression – the one that says: I’m waiting for you in the future; catch up, catch up­ – you will liberate yourself from every pre-existing bond, body, and name you ever had. And go with her.”

“There is no trans body, no body at all – no memoir, no confessions, no singular story of “you” or anyone – outside this broad and awful legacy. So when they ask you for our story – when they want to sell it – we don’t let them forget. Slavery, surveillers, settlers and their shadows.”

“In the name of those who came before, who fought the police; those whose names we know, and those whose names we can never know. In the name of those who came after, who will never know our names –”

China Mieville was speaking the truth when he stated that “Confessions of the Fox is a vitally important work of our time.” This novel not only opens a window on eighteenth century London, it opens your eyes to the trans experience. There were so many times in this novel that I felt myself able to relate to the main character with my own queer experience, but then Jordy Rosenberg completely blows you away and puts into perspective the emotional and psychological conflict of the trans experience. It’s in these passages where the novel is strongest and really shines.

It’s in the author’s choice to use footnotes to tell the portion of his story set in modern day where this novel is weakest, and where the evidence of this being a first novel is clearest. There were also some parts that could have benefited from tighter editing as the pace of the story was considerably slowed down, but despite all this I couldn’t stop recommending this novel and I raced through it to the end. As stated for the themes and perspective alone this novel is a definite recommendation.

I found the narrator engaging and a tad mysterious. I enjoyed reading about Jack and learning the "cant." An important work of historical fiction which illuminates trans narratives.

I DNFed before it made me scream with how many times the word pussy, cunt or quim appears. At one point, it's about every other word. No thanks.