The Midnight Fox

Betsy Byars was born in 1928 and lived most of her life in the Carolinas. She grew up in North Carolina and earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Queens University of Charlotte. After moving to Illinois so that her husband, Ed, could pursue a graduate degree in engineering, she began writing. As she explained, “I didn’t know anyone, I had two little kids, I had to do something” (Slotnik, Daniel E. “Betsy Byars, Who Wrote of Deserted Children, Is Dead at 91.” The New York Times, 15 March 2020). Her writing career took off, and in 1968, her fifth book, The Midnight Fox, was published. Byars went on to publish more than 60 books but has said that The Midnight Fox is her favorite book, not only because it “was the first book that turned out the way I hoped it would” (“Home.” Betsy Byars, 2003), but also because it reflects aspects of her own life. For example, Petie and Tom’s headlines are headlines that she made up as a child with her sisters. Byars was a firm believer in writing about what she knew, and her summers spent in North Carolina come to life in her depictions of the hot, humid summer that Tom spends on Aunt Millie’s farm.

Byars strategically uses dialogue rather than physical descriptions to establish the quirks of her characters. For example, although Tom’s appearance remains unknown, his conversation implies that he is not big and strong because he worries about being a disappointment to Fred and Millie, who probably want “a great athlete with muscles like potatoes” (17) rather than a skinny, “merry” boy. Byars herself admits, “I hardly ever physically describe my characters. I never write something like, ‘He was a fat boy with blah, blah, blah.’ I show that he was fat by having him talk about food a lot or raiding the fridge” (“Writing Tips.” Betsy Byars). This approach is also apparent in The Midnight Fox, since the dialogue of one character, Hazeline, portrays her as overweight when she flips through a bridal magazine and muses that the dresses “would look awful on me […] I am too fat for everything” (37). The fact that Hazeline’s character is overweight is reiterated when she shares that Mikey refuses to marry her unless she loses 20 pounds. This aspect of The Midnight Fox also speaks to the prevalent culture in the 1960s, when body-shaming was commonplace and thinness was seen as the ideal for health and beauty.