The Leopard Hat A Daughter's Story

In this tender loving memoir, Valerie Steiker evokes a magical childhood on the Upper East side of New York with a woman whose own losses led her to delight in family, beauty and life itself. Valerie Steiker's Belgian Jewish mother, Giselewho, as a child in Antwerp, was hidden from the Naziswasn't a typical American mom. She spoke with throaty BelgianRs and wore only high heels. Before her marriage, she had studied acting with Lee Strasburg and been a model in Mexico. With her vitality and elegance, she created a joyous childhood for Valerie and her sister. Together they tangoed through their vibrant Manhattan apartment, took in great art, and shared "women's hidden secrets." Gisele's premature death left Valerie (at the time a junior at Harvard) unmoored, but in grieving and in finding her own path to womanhood, Valerie would ultimately grow to understand Gisele more profoundly than she ever had as a child. Beautifully evocative of a glamourous and now-vanished world,The Leopard Hatis an extraordinary memoir about the warm and indelible bond between mother and daughter.

Valerie Steiker’s writing has appeared in <i>The New Yorker, Vogue, ARTnews, The Forward, </i>and <i>The New York Times Book Review</i>. A senior editor at <i>Vogue</i>, she lives in Manhattan.