Fox & I Is an Unnerving Memoir About Wildlife and Friendship

Several centuries ago, Voltaire declared that a dog is man’s best friend. At least, that’s what people remember best from his famous quote about the furry companion. But in her new memoir, biologist Catherine Raven reminds us that we often take the French philosopher’s words out of context: he comes to the conclusion only after citing how protective and faithful a dog is. “Voltaire has low standards for a famous guy,” Raven writes. “Defense and loyalty? A best friend should give you something money can’t buy.”

Raven dwells on this saying because her best friend, for several years, was a wild fox she met while living in an isolated cottage in Montana—and unlike a domesticated dog, this fox chose her. For some time, as she describes in her book Fox & I, the fox (whom she often calls Fox) would show up on her property each afternoon, and she would watch him from a distance. Then, one day, she decided to engage by pulling out a copy of The Little Prince and reading aloud. This became a regular routine between Raven and Fox, so much so that she knew the average length of time the creature would sit and the exact time he would arrive. (Eighteen minutes and 4:15 p.m., respectively.)

Their friendship doesn’t spiral into an adventure narrative or journey of self-discovery, like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. There are no cliff-hangers or shocking turns. Instead, the book is an unnerving, contemplative look at solitude and the connections we make with the outside world. For the reader, there’s a palpable sense of dread that keeps the pages moving: Fox won’t live forever. Yet Raven, who knows that well, writes with a refreshingly unsentimental hand. Her main concern isn’t the expiration date of their time together, but how she categorizes and comes to terms with the animal’s presence in her life.

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Raven’s not afraid to call herself a loner—she’s been on her own since she was 15, after leaving behind an abusive father and an absent mother—but she is hesitant to refer to herself, at least in public, as Fox’s friend. Over the course of Fox & I, Raven teaches remotely and leads wildlife classes at Yellowstone National Park. In the car on a drive to the park, she practices announcing that Fox is her friend. When she eventually tells her students, they are confused.

But Raven wants to respect Fox. She says, “I could have denied his existence or our relationship, but what if the knowledge that his friend was a person was a source of pride for the Fox?”

Readers may be tempted to skip over the details in Fox & I that seem irrelevant: the lengthy history of a weed; sentences spent describing Fox lying out on his favorite boulder. But Raven is at her best here, demanding our patience and rewarding those who pay attention with lush prose that coalesces into a dreamy portrait of wildlife. She conjures an image of a yellow sweet clover: “Tissue-thin petals responded to mist or dew by twisting themselves into unrecognizable clumps that no subsequent amount of sunshine could reverse.”

There’s an obvious line to make between Raven’s fixation on the natural world and what many of us have gone through over the past year. In isolation, our surroundings became everything. The walls of an apartment, the people we lived with, the pets that kept us company—they all took on newfound meaning. Yes, Fox does give Raven a sense of purpose. When he enters her life, she’s recently decided to live out on her remote land full-time and is content to keep to herself. He forces her to examine the minute details of life, and shows her that though she is alone, she does not have to be lonely. More crucially, he shows her that there is no fixed definition of friendship. For a person who has always found solace in nature, this proves to be all the assurance Raven needs.