October Pick: The Fox Wife — Yangsze Choo
Reflection
I didn't expect The Fox Wife to make me think so much about midlife.
I expected the foxes. The mythology. The mystery. The strange little moments where you aren't quite sure whether you're reading a love story, a ghost story, a historical novel, or something else entirely.
But what stayed with me were the women.
Particularly what happens to women when they have lived long enough to become something different from what the world originally decided they would be.
Snow is the obvious place to begin.
She has lived a very long life, but she has also lived through some very human things: love, marriage, motherhood, loss, grief, separation, desire, anger, and the kind of pain that changes the way you see the world. After losing her daughter, she gives herself a purpose—find Bektu and make him pay.
And I kept thinking about control.
How much of our lives is actually within our control?
Snow cannot undo what happened to her daughter. She cannot change the past. She cannot make the loss disappear. But she can decide what she does with what happened to her.
For a while, that means revenge.
And I found myself wondering whether sometimes we confuse control with healing. When something has happened to us that we cannot change, taking action can feel like taking our power back. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it may simply be grief looking for somewhere to go.
Snow's journey made me think about the difference between having power and having agency.
Power is sometimes the ability to make something happen.
Agency is knowing that you still get to decide what happens next.
Those aren't always the same thing.
And that distinction feels very midlife to me.
Because by midlife, most of us have accumulated enough life experience to know that there are things we cannot control. People leave. People disappoint us. Bodies change. Children grow. Parents age. Relationships evolve. Some doors close without asking whether we're ready.
We can't control all of that.
But we can become much more intentional about what we do next.
And then there is Tagtaa.
This may have been my favorite parallel in the book.
We meet the memory of a young girl—someone Bao loved when they were children—and eventually encounter the woman she became. The distance between those two versions of Tagtaa is enormous.
She began life with choices being made around her. Her feet were unbound in a culture where that itself marked her as different. She was placed into an arranged marriage. She became part of a household in which her role was largely determined by circumstances she didn't choose.
And yet the older Tagtaa is not simply the girl who survived those circumstances.
She has become someone with knowledge, authority, independence, and a life that belongs to her.
That got me.
Because sometimes we talk about midlife as though it is the period when women begin losing things.
Youth.
Beauty.
Fertility.
Desirability.
Some imagined version of endless possibility.
But what if there are things we gain?
Perspective.
Discernment.
The ability to recognize manipulation.
The ability to say no.
The ability to stop explaining ourselves.
The ability to understand that something being expected of us does not necessarily mean we have to keep doing it.
Tagtaa's story made me think about how autonomy can be cumulative.
We don't always wake up one morning, completely free.
We become more of our authentic selves in increments.
A choice here.
A boundary there.
A little less concern about what other people think.
A little more willingness to trust our own judgment.
And then there is Yuling.
Her relationship with Shiro made me think about a different kind of control—the control that can exist inside desire.
What happens when you love someone who is not entirely yours?
What happens when you realize that someone you love is capable of wanting someone else?
And what happens when the person you think you understand refuses to fit neatly into the role you've assigned them?
Yuling is not simply a jealous woman competing with Snow. Her story made me think about how much women are expected to manage in relationships: our emotions, our expectations, our sexuality, our reactions, even our sense of worth.
There is a particular kind of freedom in realizing that another person's desire does not determine your value.
And that brought me back to Snow.
Because Snow spends so much of the book being perceived by other people.
As beautiful.
As mysterious.
As dangerous.
As desirable.
As something to possess.
As something to fear.
But Snow knows who she is.
Or at least, she is trying very hard to determine that for herself.
And that is what I found most interesting about the women in this book: the tension between being seen and being known.
Women have always been watched.
We are told what beauty should look like. What sexuality should look like. What motherhood should look like. What marriage should look like. What aging should look like.
And then, somewhere along the way, many women reach a point where they begin asking:
What do I actually want?
Not what makes me desirable.
Not what makes me acceptable.
Not what makes everyone else comfortable.
What do I want?
That question can be terrifying.
It can also be liberating.
And that is why I kept thinking about midlife while reading The Fox Wife.
Because midlife isn't necessarily about becoming someone completely new.
Sometimes it's about finally having enough life behind you to recognize yourself.
To know what you've lost.
To know what you've learned.
To know what you will never tolerate again.
To know what you're still willing to risk.
To know what deserves forgiveness—and what simply deserves to be left behind.
And most importantly, to understand that we don't get to control everything that happens to us, but we do get increasing power over what we allow those experiences to make of us.
That is the part of The Fox Wife I'm carrying with me.
Not the fox.
Not the mystery.
Not even the revenge.
The women.
The girl who became an old woman.
The woman who refused to let grief be the end of her story.
The woman trying to understand what love means when she cannot control another person's desire.
And all of them, in different ways, trying to answer the same question:
After everything life has made of me, who do I still get to choose to be?
Reflection Prompts
As you sit with these reflections, notice what the book stirs in you. What resonates? What feels familiar? What makes you pause?
1. Control vs. agency
Snow cannot control what happened to her, but she becomes determined to control what happens next. Where do you sometimes mistake control for healing? And what might it look like to reclaim your agency without needing to control the outcome?
2. Becoming ourselves in increments
Tagtaa's life made me think about how autonomy doesn't always arrive as one dramatic act of liberation. Sometimes it accumulates slowly—a choice, a boundary, a realization, a willingness to trust ourselves. What are the small ways you have become more of your authentic self as you age?
3. Being seen vs. being known
The women in The Fox Wife are continually being perceived through beauty, sexuality, age, relationships, and the expectations of others. What is the difference between being seen and being known? And how much of yourself do you reveal—or conceal—in order to feel safe?
4. What age gives us
The book brings together women at very different stages of life, each navigating questions of identity, autonomy, love, loss, and choice, and I found myself thinking less about what women lose as they age and more about what they acquire: discernment, perspective, boundaries, self-knowledge, and the ability to recognize what no longer fits. What has age given you that you could not have understood earlier in life?
5. The things we carry
Snow carries grief. Others carry resentment, regret, longing, and the consequences of choices made long ago. But carrying something and being defined by it aren't necessarily the same thing. What are you carrying because it still matters—and what might you be carrying simply because you haven't yet decided to put it down?
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