Hatter Fox

Hatter Fox Summary | The First Encounter Summary

Hatter Fox is Marilyn Harris' novel of a seventeen year-old Navajo Indian girl living in New Mexico in the early 1970's. The story is one of isolation, alienation, and finally the redemption that comes when a young doctor befriends Hatter. The doctor has his own personal issues of disappointment and feelings of inadequacy until Hatter enters into his life.

The story is taken from the notebooks of Doctor Teague Summer and is based on his notes about a girl named Hatter Fox. Dr. Summer has never met Hatter Fox when he became a doctor at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1973. His opinion of this notorious girl is based on what he has heard from other people, who seem to blame everything from the bad economy to bad politics on this seventeen-year-old Navajo girl.

Dr. Summer soon gets a close up look at Hatter when he is called to the local jail to attend to a boy who has slit his wrists. Dr. Summer sees that the boy is leaning against the back wall of a big jail cell where Hatter Fox stands directing two single-file rows of young inmates in some sort of weird march.

The floor of the cell is covered in the wounded boy's blood and Hatter smears some it on her face and clothes as the other young people stop marching to watch her movements. Dr. Summer is allowed into the cell to tend to the wounded boy but the doctor catches Hatter's gaze and immediately feels her knife plunged into his back. The doctor falls to the floor and looks up to see Hatter's smiling face.

Dr. Summer spends a few days in the hospital and then visits the jail so that he can see Hatter face to face. The police officers warn Dr. Summer about Hatter's wild demeanor but he proceeds to her cell where he sees her lying stiffly under a blanket. Hatter has refused to put on her prison dress so she lies naked under the rough blanket, staring straight ahead.

Hatter refuses to speak to Dr. Summer but chants in a low voice until the doctor tires of this response and leaves. A few days later, Dr. Summer drives to Taos to spend some time with an artist friend while he recovers. Returning home several days later, Dr. Summer receives several letters from the State Reformatory for Girls in Albuquerque asking for his help in the matter of Hatter Fox.