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The Hat of My Mother
Max Steele's exquisitely crafted stories have long been admired and studied by readers and writers alike. These fourteen stories demonstrate the range and depth of this distinguished writer. "Beautifully wrought . . . these stories stay deep in our consciousness."--The New York Times Book Review.
- GenresShort Stories
Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Max Steele
55 books5 followersMax Steele’s (1922-2005) legacy as an author and professor resonates in North Carolina. He was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and passed away in Chapel Hill in 2005. His fiction inspired many.
His novels include Debby, which was also titled The Goblins Must Go Barefoot by the Perennial Library in 1960, and The Cat and the Coffee Drinkers. He was best known for his story collections Where She Brushed Her Hair and The Hat of My Mother. Steele earned the Harper Prize, the Saxton Memorial Trust Award, the Mayflower Cup Award, and O. Henry Prize.
He taught at several educational institutions across the U.S., including the University of California at San Francisco, Bennington College, and the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts. He began teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1956 and retired in 1988. During his time at UNC, Steele cultivated the creative writing department into a nationally recognized undergraduate program.
He received the Standard Oil Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Fellow writing instructors said Steele, “was expert at the craft of writing and editing, helping students zero in on ‘one good word instead of five weak ones.'”
Doris Betts, an instructor, author, and fellow North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee who worked with Steele, said, “They [students] never read fiction the same way again.”
His novels include Debby, which was also titled The Goblins Must Go Barefoot by the Perennial Library in 1960, and The Cat and the Coffee Drinkers. He was best known for his story collections Where She Brushed Her Hair and The Hat of My Mother. Steele earned the Harper Prize, the Saxton Memorial Trust Award, the Mayflower Cup Award, and O. Henry Prize.
He taught at several educational institutions across the U.S., including the University of California at San Francisco, Bennington College, and the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts. He began teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1956 and retired in 1988. During his time at UNC, Steele cultivated the creative writing department into a nationally recognized undergraduate program.
He received the Standard Oil Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Fellow writing instructors said Steele, “was expert at the craft of writing and editing, helping students zero in on ‘one good word instead of five weak ones.'”
Doris Betts, an instructor, author, and fellow North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame inductee who worked with Steele, said, “They [students] never read fiction the same way again.”
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 14, 2020
Max was one of my writing teachers at Chapel Hill, a tall man with an enormous head, a golden voice, and a penchant for messing with people's heads. Especially students. He was also a brilliant teacher who could say one sentence about writing that would stick in my head for days. When I read his writing I was consumed by the idea of southern writing, which in those days meant, largely, white writing about the idea of a doomed south. He fit the mold but wrote exquisitely, leaving behind one novel and a couple of books of stories. He was supposed to do a lot more than that, and the fact that his writing went cold for a decade or more was always trouble to him. This book was a late collection of stories published by Algonquin Books, and it included a number of stories that had already been published in his collection Where She Brushed Her Hair. The stories are very fine. "Where She Brushed Her Hair" is included in the volume; I remember Max reading this story aloud to us in class and thought then that the various turns of the story were simply beautiful. It is still one of my favorites. So is "The Cat and the Coffee Drinkers." He deserves to be remembered.
July 23, 2022
These stories, magazine stories at heart, mirror the times in which they were written. Carefully crafted, they read like a mash-up of Franz Kafka with John Cheever; a soupcon of Salinger can be felt.
I found some immediately engaging while others were paced slowly, sometimes dreadfully so. All were imbued with delightful imagination and often hysterical humor.
The danger of putting short stories into a book is that the reader is confronted by a new reality with each different story, necessitating a change of perspective: that is, one must make an effort to adjust, to suspend disbelief on a new level; such mental demands may dissuade the reader from advancing to the next world.
(While my copy is a first edition, second print, from 1988, I am gratified to see newer editions.)
I found some immediately engaging while others were paced slowly, sometimes dreadfully so. All were imbued with delightful imagination and often hysterical humor.
The danger of putting short stories into a book is that the reader is confronted by a new reality with each different story, necessitating a change of perspective: that is, one must make an effort to adjust, to suspend disbelief on a new level; such mental demands may dissuade the reader from advancing to the next world.
(While my copy is a first edition, second print, from 1988, I am gratified to see newer editions.)
September 2, 2018
Hilarious.
February 27, 2017
Old time family life in an era when women wore fancy hats. Buying a new hat turns into quite a comic adventure in this story.
Listened to this on Selected Ahorts podcast: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Select...
Listened to this on Selected Ahorts podcast: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Select...
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May 1, 2011A writer's writer, and one I was lucky to have as a professor at UNC- he made a lasting impression!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews