Steven Hayward is a novelist and short story writer born in Toronto, Canada. The eldest of two brothers, he attended the University of Toronto and York University, and now teaches in the English Department at Colorado College, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Hayward’s most recent novel is the Canadian National Bestseller, Don’t Be Afraid. Set in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, it tells the story seventeen-year-old Jim Morrison–not the lead singer of the Doors who died a rock ‘n’ roll death in 1971, but a chubby seventeen-year-old living in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who was born days after the singer’s death.
Jim, or Jimmy, as most people call him, has been living a largely invisible life, overshadowed by his older brother, Mike, popular and charismatic, and his father, Fort, a stern and unyielding engineer. But everything changes the night the public library explodes, with pieces of books and catalogue cards falling like snow from the dark sky.
A critical and commercial success, Don’t Be Afraid was a Globe and Mail Best Book for 2012 and was also named one of the top ten novels of the year by Toronto’s Now Magazine. “Don’t Be Afraid will break your heart in both sympathy and empathic celebration,” writes the novelist Robert Weirsema in the Globe and Mail. “It is both an elegy and an enthusiastic affirmation, darkness and light. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll wish more books were like this.”
Read more about Steven Hayward’s biography…
Read Steven Hayward’s Short Stories
Preview the Prologue for Frances Inscrutable
Meet Jim Morrison–not the lead singer of the Doors who died a rock ‘n’ roll death in 1971, but a chubby seventeen-year-old living in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, born days after the singer’s death. Jim, or Jimmy, as most people call him, has been living a largely invisible life, overshadowed by his older brother, Mike, popular and charismatic, and his father, Fort, a stern and unyielding engineer. But everything changes the night the local public library explodes, with pieces of books and catalogue cards falling like snow from the dark sky. Jimmy is first on the scene with his father and it’s soon clear that Mike had been in the library when it exploded. Mike’s death upends the Morrisons’ suburban life and any sense of normalcy is destroyed. Their mother, Filomena, is nearly catatonic with shock, and Jimmy must become his much younger brother’s nanny, taking him to preschool every day and uncomfortably hanging out with a gang of mothers, watching them breastfeed and talking about peanut allergies. The cause of the library explosion remains mysterious, and Jimmy tries to help his father unofficially gather evidence at the site. Add to this his duties surrounding his mother’s idea to have a birthday party for his dead brother, and Jimmy finds himself busier and, bizarrely, happier than he’s ever been.
Watch the book trailer for Don’t Be Afraid.
“A beautiful meditation on loss, grief and the stubborn resilience of families.”
— Nino Ricci, author of The Origin of Species
“Don’t Be Afraid is an extraordinary novel, utterly compelling from the first page to the last. Portraying lovable characters in varying degrees of crisis, the novel is tender, wise and hilariously funny. Hayward is the fine and rare writer—like Richler in Solomon Gursky or Barney’s Version—who makes us laugh all the while illuminating with compassion and candour the truths of the human heart.”
— Timothy Taylor, author of Stanley Park
“Don’t Be Afraid broke my heart in the very best way. That is, the funny/sad way. Indeed, Steven Hayward may just be the best funny/sad writer we have. Go on. Let him break your heart.”
— Andrew Pyper, author of The Killing Circle
“A hilarious and quietly subversive tour of post-industrial American suburban life. The fictional Jim Morrison in Don’t Be Afraid is more interesting than the real Jim Morrison ever was.”
— Stephen Marche, author of Raymond and Hannah
“Don’t Be Afraid is an acutely smart and sensitive portrayal of a youth who is forced to confront the inexplicable death of a family member. Steven Hayward is an outstanding writer with a special talent for exploring the big existential questions through comic virtuosity and the artful rendering of voice.”
— David Chariandy, author of Soucouyant
It’s a summer afternoon in 1933 when our hero, Lucio Burke, knocks a great bird out of the Toronto sky with a single, perfect throw. Thus it is that Lucio finds himself pulled into history—into contact with a radicalized labour movement, anti-Semitism, and Mussolini’s fascism—and into a city alive with new immigrants, Jews, Italians, Irish, and Chinese, who are dreaming and working their way to a brand new life. On hand to observe this incredible chain of events is nineteen-year-old Ruthie the Commie—gorgeous, fearsome, and convinced that love and social justice are both just around the corner. And the day she seduces Lucio, his best friend and next-door-neighbour, Dubie, declares his love for Ruthie. What follows is a story about young love, friendship, the nature of the miraculous, and a quest to change the world.
Winner of the Grinzane Cavour Award for Best Debut Novel (Italy)
Finalist for the Northern Ohio Arts Achievement Award
“The genius of Steven Hayward…is to take the daily slipshod passage
of trivial-to-traumatic events, present it as pure storytelling and distill from it the essence of what it means to live, through times both terrible and transcendent… It’s been years since I’ve seen this much
fresh talent and wisdom.”—The Globe and Mail
“an engaging writer, with an offbeat sense of humour and a knack for making us care…There are traces of Bernard Malamud’s baseball fable, The Natural…and some John Irving, too.”—Joel Yanofsky, The National Post
“The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke is full of colorful, larger-than-life characters and richly rendered action. Steven Hayward has created a mythic Toronto that will live vividly in the reader’s imagination.”
—Dan Chaon, author of You Remind Me of Me
“Reading this book is an immersive, unforgettable experience.
You’ll want to share it with everyone you know. It’s sweet without being cloying. It’s graceful and charming, hilarious and touching. Hayward has knocked this one out of the park.”—Vancouver Sun
“a great story, filled with ample humour and affecting tragedy. Hayward captures the prewar era and the angst of passing into adulthood with great assurance in this gem of a novel.” —Edmonton Journal
“In a debut novel, Depression-era Toronto comes alive as a magical and
slightly unreal landscape. The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke is lively and fun and just a little corny, like Mordecai Richler’s Duddy Kravitz painted in the hues of Norman Rockwell–it’s unmistakably fantastical fiction.”
—Time Magazine Canada
“The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke is a wonderful novel, funny and
touching, and full of more sheer invention than most novelists stretch
over a career. It is a great achievement.”
—Paul Quarrington, author of Galveston and Whale Music
With September here and class back in session, The Afterword asked several Canadian authors to answer this question: If you could add one book to the high school curriculum – a book which students couldn’t graduate with until it was read – what would it be, and why?
Short story writer and novelist Stephen Finucan discusses his pick for the curriculum: Steven Hayward’s The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke.
Exile Press | May 25, 2000 | Trade Paperback
Read ReviewsDavid Bergen’s
The Matter with Morris in the Globe and Mail
John Bemrose’s
The Last Woman in the Globe and Mail
David Nicholl’s
One Day in the Globe and Mail
Frances Inscrutable – The Prologue by Steven Hayward
Against Fricking – A PowerPoint Short Story by Steven Hayward
Upcoming EventsMarch 18, 2012
Golden Quill Award
Time: 2 PM
Carnegie Reading Room at Penrose Library
About The Event:
The Friends of the Pikes Peak Library District will honor Assistant English Professor Steven Hayward with its prestigious Golden Quill Award.
Hayward is receiving the award for his most recent novel, “Don’t Be Afraid,” a heartbreaking and hilarious exploration of loss and recovery.
His first book, “Buddha Stevens and Other Stories,” a collection of short stories, won the Upper Canada Writers’ Craft Award; his second, “The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke,” won Italy’s Premio Grinzane Cavour Prize. In addition to his work as a novelist, Hayward has published on fiction, creative communication, pedagogy, literary theory, and Shakespearean theater.
February 24, 2011
Colorado College Visiting Writers
Time: 7 pm
Gates Common Room of Palmer Hall
Free and Open to the Public
For more info see the Colorado College website.
February 8, 2011
Toronto launch of Don’t Be Afraid at the Dora Keough on the Danforth.
Sponsored by Knopf Canada and The Fine Print
Featuring Miriam Toews who will be discussing the new book (which book?) with me.
For more info see Ben McNally and The Fine Print.
Steven Hayward is a novelist and short story writer born in Toronto, Canada. The eldest of two brothers, he attended the University of Toronto and York University, and now teaches in the English Department at Colorado College, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Hayward’s most recent novel is the Canadian National Bestseller, Don’t Be Afraid. Set in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, it tells the story seventeen-year-old Jim Morrison–not the lead singer of the Doors who died a rock ‘n’ roll death in 1971, but a chubby seventeen-year-old living in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, who was born days after the singer’s death.
Jim, or Jimmy, as most people call him, has been living a largely invisible life, overshadowed by his older brother, Mike, popular and charismatic, and his father, Fort, a stern and unyielding engineer. But everything changes the night the public library explodes, with pieces of books and catalogue cards falling like snow from the dark sky.
A critical and commercial success, Don’t Be Afraid was a Globe and Mail Best Book for 2012 and was also named one of the top ten novels of the year by Toronto’s Now Magazine. “Don’t Be Afraid will break your heart in both sympathy and empathic celebration,” writes the novelist Robert Weirsema in the Globe and Mail. “It is both an elegy and an enthusiastic affirmation, darkness and light. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll wish more books were like this.”
His second novel,The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke won Italy’s prestigious Premio Grinzane Cavour Prize for best first novel. A historical novel set in 1933, when Toronto was a city rocked by fighting between Jews and the Swastika Club, the novel draws on the experiences of his grandparents to give a portrait of the hopeful and passionate lives of the ordinary men and women of a world gone by. About it the Toronto Star writes, “An absolute pleasure. . . . Hayward’s Ward has all the charm and colour of Richler’s St. Urbain Street…as powerful a rendering of the early 20th century immigrant experience in Toronto as is Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion.”
Hayward’s first book was Buddha Stevens and Other Stories which won the 2001 Upper Canada Writer’s Craft Award. Prior to the appearance of this collection, the individual stories that would eventually make up this collection were nominated for the Pushcart and Journey prizes, won awards at the University of Greensboro, the University of Arkansas, and the University of Toronto, and had appeared in The Iowa Review, Writ,Exile, The Southwestern Review, Fiddlehead, and Canadian Fiction Magazine.
The Globe and Mail listed Buddha Stevens and Other Stories as one of its top 100 Books of 2001 and praised it in these terms: “The genius of Toronto writer Steven Hayward. . .is to take the daily slipshod passage of trivial to traumatic events, present it as pure storytelling and distil from it the essence of what it means to live, through times both terrible and transcendent. . . . Hayward takes things we hope aren’t possible, things we hope won’t happen, and shows that their happening is precisely what it’s all about — and we’re as blessed as we are cursed by it. . . . It’s been years since I’ve seen this much fresh talent and wisdom.”
Hayward is an Assistant Professor in the English Department of Colorado College, in Colorado Springs. He teaches Creative Writing, Shakespeare, Canadian literature, and has published essays on a number of subjects including television and film, amendments to the tax code, Canadian literature and culture, and intercultural communication. A frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail, The Literary Review of Canada, and the Wall Street Journal, He has three children, Frances, Eddie, and Jimmy, and is married to Katherine, his muse and best critic. When he’s not writing or teaching, he’s usually riding his mountain bike somewhere, or playing squash.
His current projects include an adventure novel written for all ages called Frances Inscrutable and the Way the World Almost Ended, a novel set in Torino, Italy, and a libretto commissioned by the avant-garde composer Stephen Scott about the Petrograd Children’s Colony in Russia.
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