54 pages 1 hour read

Helen Oyeyemi

Mr. Fox

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011

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Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary: “Hide, Seek”

A family in Asyût has a new baby boy. The child is weak, so they put him up for adoption. A tall woman in black comes for the boy because she says he is a “seeker,” and she needs a seeker.

In Osogbo, near a love shrine, a girl is born. She matures quickly and is beautiful but seems vacant. This bothers her father, and he physically abuses her. People beg him to stop. Eventually, he stops, and the girl apologizes to him.

The boy grows to be arrogant. He is scared of his home, in which the upstairs is blocked off. His new mother collects artistic renditions of female body parts, hoping to compile them into a completed piece that resembles a woman. Together, she and the boy travel, and she relies on him to seek out new pieces of art. He found a photograph of a little girl to serve as the face. They took the photograph from her house, where she and her family were murdered. She said they still needed a heart for their collection.

The girl has an open heart that is too heavy. She tries to give it away, but it always comes back. She first tries to lose weight, but that does not lighten her, so she takes out her heart and hides it behind moss on the wall of the love shrine.