THE HAT OF MY MOTHER by...

THE HAT OF MY MOTHER by Max Steele (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill: $9.95; 270 pp.). Available for the first paperback, Steele’s short fiction offers solidly constructed plots, vivid characterizations and well-crafted sentences. The title story recounts the curious misadventures the narrator’s prim mother encountered when she set out to buy a replacement for her antiquated favorite hat. In the multilayered “Another Love Story,” a married man scrutinizes his former lover’s successful books, hoping and fearing they contain some hint of their affair. Steele received the O. Henry Prize for “Color the Daydream Yellow,” a vivid evocation of man’s memories of an early love affair in Paris.