Audition For The Fox

Audition for Fox by Martin Cahill is a well-constructed fable for today’s day and age. Cahill tells the tale of Nesi, a child of godly blood, and her audition to earn patronage from the trickster god, Fox. Cahill combines his modern-day folktale with vividly imaginative worldbuilding for this fabulous novella. Without wasting words, Cahill delivers Nesi and the reader into a dismal world ruled over by the tyrannical Wolfhounds of Zemin. To prove herself to T’sidaan, the Fox God, Nesi uses every bit of cunning to free her people from the brutality.

Audition for Fox is a quick, uplifting novella that is hard to put down. While using figures from existing folktales, Cahill creates his pantheon of animal deities. Using his Gods, Cahill includes four fables. True to form, these brief tales entertain and teach valuable lessons. Around these fables, Cahill starts his story with darkness and despair but finishes with a sense of hope. With everything happening in the world today, finding a book that leaves the reader with a sense of hope and goodwill is refreshing. And as Fox says in this feel-good fable, “We could all stand to create more than we destroy, especially these days.”