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Hatter Fox
This strange and beautiful novel is the story of Hatter Fox, a seventeen-year-old Navajo with a long criminal record, totally rejected by and isolated from white society. Inescapably drawn to her fate, Dr. Teague Summer succeeds over time in drawing out the gifted and spirited girl and rescuing her from a brutal and uncaring bureaucracy. Free Teachers guide available upon request.
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
5 people are currently reading
169 people want to read
About the author
Marilyn Harris
40 books81 followersHarris was born on June 4, 1931, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the daughter of John P., an oil executive, and Dora (nee Veal) Harris. Harris was educated in her home state, attending Cottey College from 1945 to 1951, then transferring to the University of Oklahoma, from which she received a bachelor of arts degree in 1953 and a master of arts degree in 1955.
Harris's first collection of short stories, King's Ex, was published by Doubleday in 1967. After that Harris proved a prolific author, publishing seventeen books, including novels, short stories, romance/ historical fiction and children's fiction in a twenty-year period from 1970 to 1989. These works, in addition to those listed above, include In the Midst of Earth (1969), The Peppersalt Land (1970), The Runaway's Diary (1971), The Conjurers (1974), Bledding Sorrow (1976), The Portent (1980), The Last Great Love (1981), Warrick (1985), Night Games (1987), and Lost and Found (1991). Harris's work has received a wide readership; in 1983, nine million of her books were in print, and her work has been translated into many languages, including French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Japanese. She has also been an author in residence at Oklahoma's Central State University.
She died January 18, 2002.
Harris's first collection of short stories, King's Ex, was published by Doubleday in 1967. After that Harris proved a prolific author, publishing seventeen books, including novels, short stories, romance/ historical fiction and children's fiction in a twenty-year period from 1970 to 1989. These works, in addition to those listed above, include In the Midst of Earth (1969), The Peppersalt Land (1970), The Runaway's Diary (1971), The Conjurers (1974), Bledding Sorrow (1976), The Portent (1980), The Last Great Love (1981), Warrick (1985), Night Games (1987), and Lost and Found (1991). Harris's work has received a wide readership; in 1983, nine million of her books were in print, and her work has been translated into many languages, including French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Japanese. She has also been an author in residence at Oklahoma's Central State University.
She died January 18, 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
July 23, 2012
I have never come across a book quite like this one. Violence, anger, redemption, victory over adversity and tragic loss...if you can find it, it's a fantastic read. It is a rare love story about a strange native American juvenile delinquent and her social worker. I would recommend to all!
January 20, 2022
I have never hated the ending of a book more than this one. It made the rest of this story, full of beauty and love, completely pointless. I seriously wish I'd never read this. I'm so mad.
What's the point of writing a whole novel where you slowly show a girl healing from the abuse people had dealt her, only to end her story in tragedy? I hate the final words that the book leaves you with, that people who have been hurt and suffer from mental illness are destined to always be rejected by the world and there's just no hope. I can't believe that to be true.
And honestly, Hatter Fox as a character deserved better than the ridiculous Nicholas Sparks ending she received. Probably one of the worst books I've ever read. I do not recommend this book.
TW: physical abuse, off screen mentions of sexual assault and child abuse, graphic depictions of racism
What's the point of writing a whole novel where you slowly show a girl healing from the abuse people had dealt her, only to end her story in tragedy? I hate the final words that the book leaves you with, that people who have been hurt and suffer from mental illness are destined to always be rejected by the world and there's just no hope. I can't believe that to be true.
And honestly, Hatter Fox as a character deserved better than the ridiculous Nicholas Sparks ending she received. Probably one of the worst books I've ever read. I do not recommend this book.
TW: physical abuse, off screen mentions of sexual assault and child abuse, graphic depictions of racism
August 7, 2012
This book was one of the first ones I read that really got to me. I was 12 I think. I loved this book then and I love it now. I feel Hatter in my soul. One of those books that is all at once completely real yet surreal.
September 5, 2021
Fifteen years after my first read, I had forgotten nearly everything about it, including why I originally rated it "3.5/4 stars," but the Goodreads description of "doctor drawn to help 17-year-old" set off my GOOD DYNAMIC VERY GOOD radar, and the reread did not disappoint.
I'm surprised it was on my high school library's shelves since the entire book is told from Dr. Summer's perspective, and while I still think it's a somewhat slow and tedious start, I resisted the urge to peek ahead and I very patiently went on the journey with him, through the endless routine of him sticking out day after day beside her by-turns mute/motionless and violently hysterical self until she begins talking, and ultimately I was rewarded with one of the deepest, punch-you-in-the-heart-with-its-goodness healer/abuse victim bonds I have ever seen.
And it's not because she learns to love and trust in some saccharine way. She's been repeatedly abandoned and horrifically abused in so many different ways throughout most of her life that she has far too much damage to unlearn her hostility, her impulsiveness and other poor coping mechanisms for trauma in less than a year. She reminds me of one of those rescue dogs with a potentially dangerous mix of strength and intelligence -- a husky, a German Shepherd, a pit bull -- whose first instinct will be to watch her own back no matter how safe a situation seems, always reserving something a little wild about her...but at the same time, you admire that fiercely guarded sense of self. It makes what trust she does grant mean more. She gets to the point of being at least somewhat accepting of his guidance and plans for her to figure out how to function in society, and the journey to get there is worth it.
The wonderful thing is that he never intends to do anything more than reintroduce her to the general state-care populace once it's safe for all parties involved, because the surface motivation driving him is merely that he wants to fix her. She's a problem authorities can't control except by brute force; he's a young, idealistic doctor who thinks he can solve a puzzle where others have failed, even if that means taking a leave of absence from his regular job to take on one where he lives in a girl's reformatory, sharing first solitary confinement and then the head nurse's living quarters with a girl who can't be trusted not to attack her peers (or left alone with rapey guards). What he doesn't get, for quite some time, is that you can't spend practically 24/7 with someone and not start to care on a personal level.
(The nurse, by the way, is a not-insignificant part in Hatter's rehabilitation, and a shining example of someone who has a firsthand look at the flaws and shortcomings of the reform system but feels she has no recourse against it, and so just does what she can to patch girls up as they come in. Until she has a chance to do better by one of them.)
What's beautiful about the relationship between Summer & Hatter is that it hits that rare and perfect sweet spot where it's not romantic -- it's not -- but you can read as much or as little subliminal romance into it as you like because with just an 11-year age gap, there's room for it to develop into that someday.
It wouldn't necessarily have to do that to be satisfying, and I think it would take a long time to happen if it did. But in that sweet narrow space between platonic and romantic, a space about the width of a tightrope sometimes, nearly everything short of overt sexual attraction overlaps, and that is where I like to be. Because even as merely her safe space/guardian, that is the place where I get to enjoy two separate occasions of him just holding her in his arms until she comes down from whatever rage fit or panic attack she's just been in and finishes crying it out.
The ending is one I would like to rip out, just rip out the last five pages or so, because they do not jive with my vision; I'd rather have an open-ended cliffhanger than this...but I will grudgingly allow that those last few pages are very powerful and perhaps even the only way to give a story this intense satisfactory resolution.
I'm surprised it was on my high school library's shelves since the entire book is told from Dr. Summer's perspective, and while I still think it's a somewhat slow and tedious start, I resisted the urge to peek ahead and I very patiently went on the journey with him, through the endless routine of him sticking out day after day beside her by-turns mute/motionless and violently hysterical self until she begins talking, and ultimately I was rewarded with one of the deepest, punch-you-in-the-heart-with-its-goodness healer/abuse victim bonds I have ever seen.
And it's not because she learns to love and trust in some saccharine way. She's been repeatedly abandoned and horrifically abused in so many different ways throughout most of her life that she has far too much damage to unlearn her hostility, her impulsiveness and other poor coping mechanisms for trauma in less than a year. She reminds me of one of those rescue dogs with a potentially dangerous mix of strength and intelligence -- a husky, a German Shepherd, a pit bull -- whose first instinct will be to watch her own back no matter how safe a situation seems, always reserving something a little wild about her...but at the same time, you admire that fiercely guarded sense of self. It makes what trust she does grant mean more. She gets to the point of being at least somewhat accepting of his guidance and plans for her to figure out how to function in society, and the journey to get there is worth it.
The wonderful thing is that he never intends to do anything more than reintroduce her to the general state-care populace once it's safe for all parties involved, because the surface motivation driving him is merely that he wants to fix her. She's a problem authorities can't control except by brute force; he's a young, idealistic doctor who thinks he can solve a puzzle where others have failed, even if that means taking a leave of absence from his regular job to take on one where he lives in a girl's reformatory, sharing first solitary confinement and then the head nurse's living quarters with a girl who can't be trusted not to attack her peers (or left alone with rapey guards). What he doesn't get, for quite some time, is that you can't spend practically 24/7 with someone and not start to care on a personal level.
(The nurse, by the way, is a not-insignificant part in Hatter's rehabilitation, and a shining example of someone who has a firsthand look at the flaws and shortcomings of the reform system but feels she has no recourse against it, and so just does what she can to patch girls up as they come in. Until she has a chance to do better by one of them.)
What's beautiful about the relationship between Summer & Hatter is that it hits that rare and perfect sweet spot where it's not romantic -- it's not -- but you can read as much or as little subliminal romance into it as you like because with just an 11-year age gap, there's room for it to develop into that someday.
It wouldn't necessarily have to do that to be satisfying, and I think it would take a long time to happen if it did. But in that sweet narrow space between platonic and romantic, a space about the width of a tightrope sometimes, nearly everything short of overt sexual attraction overlaps, and that is where I like to be. Because even as merely her safe space/guardian, that is the place where I get to enjoy two separate occasions of him just holding her in his arms until she comes down from whatever rage fit or panic attack she's just been in and finishes crying it out.
The ending is one I would like to rip out, just rip out the last five pages or so, because they do not jive with my vision; I'd rather have an open-ended cliffhanger than this...but I will grudgingly allow that those last few pages are very powerful and perhaps even the only way to give a story this intense satisfactory resolution.
May 13, 2009
This book gets a 4 from me because when I first read it in Jr. High it seemed so worldly and romantic. I'm sure it would not be the same to reread it now, so I am going to leave it glowing in the memory vault of my mind!
Read
March 31, 2013Loved this book in school and just had to read it again. Very realistic tale of a doctor and the Indian girl he tries to help. She is a deeply disturbed person who is always in some type of juvenile detention.
June 3, 2015
I read the first two pages of this book in a lake cabin when I was eleven. My parents had rented the place for the weekend and as I was exploring I discovered that the owner had left a few books on one of the bedroom shelves. One of them was Hatter Fox. The image of a stoic girl directing traffic in a jail cell, managing to steal a man's attention that was supposed to be on a dying Indian boy absolutely terrified me. For the rest of my family's stay at that cabin I couldn't walk by that room without thinking of Hatter Fox and becoming frightened enough to sprint past the doorway. Ever since then I have had that image in the back of my mind. Now, nearly four years later, I finally picked up a copy of the book, and let me just say that I was not let down one bit. This story makes you ponder life and death in ways that you would never think to on your own, while also putting into perspective several common human issues with words so brilliant that they will thoroughly captivate you. It's safe to say that as an eleven-year-old, I was right -- this book is terrifying, but it is also breathtaking, beautifully written, and a story that you will never be able to forget.
August 12, 2016
I first read Hatter Fox while in high school and loved it. A young doctor, who is drawn to this teen aged girl after she injures him with a knife, goes to work for the home for trouble teens where Hattie now is. He starts to see the good in people again, and Hattie gets to be a teen with a chance to prove herself as capable of growing up well. I did feel that the doctor being portrayed as disgruntled with the world while being so young was slightly unbelievable. But the character's ability to open up as he sees Hatter growing and maturing, and as he starts to relate to the other girls and the nurse in the "school" as well, he becomes likeable.
After high school, I found myself talking about it with a friend and rereading it. I think it is a little bit romanticized, but overall a read that I definitely enjoyed.
After high school, I found myself talking about it with a friend and rereading it. I think it is a little bit romanticized, but overall a read that I definitely enjoyed.
November 3, 2016
Dr. Summer is a semi-clueless Caucasian man. He becomes involved with the case of Hatter Fox, a Navajo young woman, who needs help in more than one way. The tale is an all too familiar portrait of how the world sees Caucasian versus the native population and how we view those who get in trouble with the law versus law abiding citizens.
We are reminded how easy it is to forget that the way we are looked at can be very different than the way other nationalities are look at. A worthwhile and heartwarming tale that does not preach or condemn the reader but through good storytelling gets the point across. Well worth the time it took to read.
We are reminded how easy it is to forget that the way we are looked at can be very different than the way other nationalities are look at. A worthwhile and heartwarming tale that does not preach or condemn the reader but through good storytelling gets the point across. Well worth the time it took to read.
November 12, 2008
This was a very interesting book, and I read it at a very interesting time in my life. I think I was fourteen, not that far removed from Hatter's age in the book.
I was most struck by the descriptions of Hatter's life and experiences, and the tragedy of the story as a whole. I don't want to add any spoilers, but this book is worth reading by any one who has ever dealt with or been a troubled teenager.
I was most struck by the descriptions of Hatter's life and experiences, and the tragedy of the story as a whole. I don't want to add any spoilers, but this book is worth reading by any one who has ever dealt with or been a troubled teenager.
October 16, 2008
Hands down probably one of the best books I've ever read. This story really draws you in and makes you feel a great range of emotions. I've read it many times and never tire of it. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a book they can't put down.
December 19, 2008
one of my favorite books i read when i was a very young-young adult. i have to say that it reminded me of an aunt of mine... ha ha...
October 9, 2015
I read this on the recommendation of my mother. Her sister, a high school teacher in New Mexico, used to teach it in her literature class and had given my mother a copy.
June 30, 2009
Am cleaning out bookshelves and found this one read long ago. I remember it as a story good enough that I kept (and moved) the book even though it is now going to the library book sale!
August 13, 2010
Another book off my teen shelves.
January 27, 2011
A young abused Indian girl is abandoned and sent to a reformatory where a young doctor helps her.
November 19, 2022
This isn't my normal style of book, but I read it when a friend recommended it. I didn't regret it.
July 14, 2011
Ooooooo, the ending of this read just pissed me off!!! I was so disappointed!!!
August 13, 2016
Read this one back when I was still in elementary school. Interesting story about a damaged woman. Very different to `This Other Eden'.
January 30, 2012
As narmy and improbably 'shoot the shaggy dog' as City of Angels.
May 6, 2012
I read this as a young teenager. It affected me greatly. Not your usual fairy tale. One of my favorites!
Read
September 26, 2014Fiction H3151h 1973
Want to read
March 5, 2016Read this when I was around 15, and always remembered it as a favorite...I wonder now what I would think!
Read
April 18, 2010I love this book. I read it when i was in school. I can relate to it alot.
November 11, 2025
I am conflicted about this book. I had to keep reminding myself it was written over 50 years ago. The idea of a "white savior" was difficult to get past sometimes. And because he was a 28-year-old male doctor with a 17-year-old "patient" was also rough.
However, this is a story about a young woman who does not belong in either the Native American world she was born into -- and ultimately abandoned by -- or the white society she is abused and imprisoned by. Hatter Fox is a tragic character by all accounts, and ultimately a teenager trying to find her way in a world that is dismissive and cruel.
I think I might have read this when I was 14. It was in my father's belongings and found after he passed away. Some of the passages concerning her stay in the reformatory brought back some unpleasant memories as I, too, was in the custody of the state when I was a teenager because of truancy and running away from home. I was uncontrollable and absolutely depressed at that young age.
Finally, one passage near the end will stay with me forever. "We must learn to live with our last words, our final actions, our sins of omission and commission, our neglects and regrets." An absolutely true statement of grief.
However, this is a story about a young woman who does not belong in either the Native American world she was born into -- and ultimately abandoned by -- or the white society she is abused and imprisoned by. Hatter Fox is a tragic character by all accounts, and ultimately a teenager trying to find her way in a world that is dismissive and cruel.
I think I might have read this when I was 14. It was in my father's belongings and found after he passed away. Some of the passages concerning her stay in the reformatory brought back some unpleasant memories as I, too, was in the custody of the state when I was a teenager because of truancy and running away from home. I was uncontrollable and absolutely depressed at that young age.
Finally, one passage near the end will stay with me forever. "We must learn to live with our last words, our final actions, our sins of omission and commission, our neglects and regrets." An absolutely true statement of grief.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 24, 2020
SOrt of sickening. I didn't finish. I found this book in the lobby where I was waiting, waiting, waiting.. so maybe I was in a crappy mood. Still I found the descriptions of mistreatment to be almost sadistic. There's a swarmy almost wallowing enjoyment that the author seems to get out of the scenes of degradation. Yuck
November 16, 2022
Absolutely amazing book! I kept finding myself wanting to read more and more. The writing kept me reeled in and always made room on my schedule.
April 27, 2025
I have a love/hate relationship with this book. Things to love: determination, friendship, kindness, compassion, trust and life's small rewards. Things to hate: racism, power, lust, fear, apathy, and disregard of basic human needs. This doc was in over his head for doing therapy with Hatter, and he knew it, she knew it and everyone else knew it. Yet, against all odds, he did it anyway. It was challenging, harrowing, frustrating, confusing and what not, helping him learn just as much about himself as he did her. And yet, in the end, his weaknesses got the best of him and created the biggest loss. This book was well written and captured what the attitudes and perspectives towards the natives at that time. It demonstrated perfectely how naievity can be a huge weakness and hinderance to growth. The author captured the demons and angels within most people, and how both exist in all. Great book! Many other reviews mentioned how romantic the book was--I didn't see it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2017
This was an unexpectely good read, drawing me in from the very first page. Many fascinating cultural contrasts are made, and silence is valued. There were several surprises, and this book was not at all what I had imagined it would be, happily. I was profoundly dissapointed to see the level of anti-AmerIndian/Native American sentiment in what I had imagined to be a mostly Native American location, and I continued to be shocked throughout the book. Wow what a read, recommened for everyone.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews