I have a new book out! It’s called His. Name. Was. The. Hat. — a memoir essay about the people and places I encountered when I lived in London’s Notting Hill/Westbourne Grove neighborhood in my early 20s — foremost among them was a larger than life character known as The Hat (or The Hat of Chicago, or Dan the Hat, or Dan MacKenzie.) who carried a sword stick and always wore a fedora — and claimed to have been a one-time gangster, smuggler, and scam artist who worked for Al Capone and served time on Alcatraz… but did he really.…?
Me and That Hat c. 1977
The essay is a slim stand-alone book, brought out by the independent publisher Austeria, based in Krakpw, with operations also in Siracusa, Sicily, and Budapest.
Here’s how it starts:
In the photograph, I’m in a pub. My hair is dark and cut very short, parted on one side; I’m wearing big, shiny gold hoop earrings, aviator glasses, and a black turtle neck sweater up to my chin; its collar rises above a necklace – you can’t see it clearly in the photo, but I know it’s a necklace made from thin brass coins with Arabic lettering that my father brought me back from Cyprus when I was 16. I’m in my 20s. It’s the late 1970s. My arms are crossed, and I’m smiling broadly; the photo is very sharp – though it’s a black and white scan from a faded color slide it’s so sharp that you can even see the discoloration of my right front tooth, the result of a playground fall when I was eight and was playing a game trying to jump over a rope that had been strung between two swings.
Next to me is a man. He hugs me close with a big, meaty fist; a pugilist’s fist. He is older, to me he’s old; he looks at the camera full on, pale staring eyes above a bushy grey beard. His face is impassive; but he appears to be smiling too, a Mona Lisa smile; replete with ambiguity. He is wearing a heavy double-breasted overcoat with long sleeves and wide lapels – a Teddy Bear coat, we called it. It is tan, camel’s hair, in color. It hangs open. Under it, he wears a formal white shirt, a floppy dark bow tie, and a buttoned vest (or maybe jacket) decorated with a bunch of coins on a chain. His right hand, the hand that doesn’t sit heavy on my shoulder, clutches a full pint of dark beer. At his side, hidden below the bar, is probably the swordstick cane he always carries to help him balance his side to side rolling gait; or maybe to scare off would-be muggers. On his head a slightly battered fedora, in what I know is dark blue leather, slouches at an almost rakish angle.
The man’s name is The Hat of Chicago. Or Mac the Hat. Or Dan the Hat. Or Dan Mackenzie. Or simply The Hat. He claims to have been a gangster working for Al Capone in the 1930s.
Watch a video about the book, and riffle through the pages:
