Steven Hayward Publishes ‘Don’t be Afraid’

Steven Hayward, Colorado College assistant professor of English, has published “Don’t be Afraid,” a darkly comic novel of adolescent anxiety featuring Jim Morrison  – not the lead singer of The Doors who died in 1971, but a chubby 17-year-old living in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. This Jim Morrison was born days after the singer’s death, and Jimmy, as most people call him, has been living a largely invisible life, overshadowed by his older brother, and his stern and unyielding engineer father. When the older brother dies, the family’s suburban life is upended and any sense of normalcy is destroyed. The book features humor and energy, as Hayward weaves a story of the undercurrents of family life and the unpredictable ways lives can unfold. “Don’t be Afraid” is published by Knopf Canada.