KAUFMAN’S HILL

“Kaufman’s Hill is among the most touching, sensitive, and spellbinding memoirs I’ve encountered in many years. Beautifully and exactly written, this book will surely reach into the hearts of its readers. I was deeply moved.”

– TIM O’BRIEN, AUTHOR, THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

KAUFMAN’S HILL

“The best book written on American boyhood in decades.”

– HISTORIAN HOWARD ZINN, AUTHOR, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

PREVIEW KAUFMAN’S HILL

 

An excerpt from Kaufman’s Hill, entitled “The Rivers,” appears in the Winter 2014 issue of The Gettysburg Review

KAUFMAN’S HILL

Kaufman’s Hill is a vivid and unforgettable coming-of-age tale of boys and bullies on the edge of post-industrial America. Hampsey’s haunting, lyrical world thrums with the dark, erratic rhythms that lie below the surface of our seemingly ordinary childhoods. He makes me remember mine differently, somehow.”

– RUTH OZEKI, AUTHOR, A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING






A PROFOUND AND INTENSELY MOVING BOYHOOD MEMOIR

Kaufman’s Hill opens with a prosaic neighborhood scene: The author and some other young boys are playing by the creek, one of their usual stomping grounds. But it soon becomes clear that much more is going on; the boy-narrator is struggling to find his way in a middle-class Catholic neighborhood dominated by bullies, the Creelys, who often terrify him.

It’s the Pittsburgh of the early and mid-1960s, a threshold time just before the counter-culture arrives, and a time when suburban society begins to encroach on Kaufman’s Hill, the boy’s sanctuary and the setting of many of his adventures. As the hill and the 1950s vanish into the twilight, so does the world of the narrator’s boyhood.

“My pappy says if you’re going to be afraid of everything, you may as well live in the sewer” are the words that first open the narrator’s eyes. And once he befriends the enigmatic, erratic, but charismatic Taddy Keegan, he becomes bolder and no longer lives in abject fear of the Creelys. The narrator’s relationship with Taddy proves to be unconventional, though. Taddy, caught in his own imaginary universe, is often unaware of companions around him. The narrator focuses on uncovering the mystery of Taddy: Why does he live his life like he’s a performer? Who is he really?

The narrator’s world is a mix of exhilarating freedom — because of absent parents, teachers, and priests — and imminent dangers. And his home life is problematic. The narrator observes his taciturn father as he copes with manic behaviors and cyclically repeating problems, while his mother struggles to better the life not just of her young son, but that of her African American cleaning woman in a time of racial animosity and racially-related urban violence. The boy watches his parents with eyes too young to truly understand, and is increasingly disappointed by his father, who becomes more remote and who rarely speaks to him.

As the narrator matures, his self-concept shifts within a widening world that includes disconcerting sexual experiences with public school girls, and his struggle to frame himself within the realm of the Catholic Church. He finds flaws with all but one religious figure, an aunt, who is a sublime and mystical presence in his life. The narrator joins sports teams that bring him back to the same kind of childhood “friends” he wanted to escape, and he questions whether he himself could act like a bully. When he begins high school, the narrator, at a dramatic moment, leaves boyhood behind, which might include leaving Taddy Keegan behind as well.

Hard back release February 1st, 2015, Bancroft Press

Cover painting by T.S. Harris.



Kaufman’s Hill is among the most touching, sensitive, and spellbinding memoirs I’ve encountered in many years. Beautifully and exactly written, this book will surely reach into the hearts of its readers. I was deeply moved.”

―Tim O’Brien, Author, The Things They Carried

 

“The best book written on American boyhood in decades.”

―Historian Howard Zinn, Author, A People’s History of the United States

 

Kaufman’s Hill is a vivid and unforgettable coming-of-age tale of boys and bullies on the edge of post-industrial America. Hampsey’s haunting, lyrical world thrums with the dark, erratic rhythms that lie below the surface of our seemingly ordinary childhoods. He makes me remember mine differently, somehow.”

―Ruth Ozeki, Author, A Tale for the Time Being

 

“Hampsey has written a gem of a memoir. As powerful, poignant, funny and deeply moving as anything I’ve read since Russell Baker’s masterpiece, Growing Up. Someone should make a movie of this.”

―Mark Mathabane, Author, Kaffir Boy

 

“This is what an American childhood used to be like before it was organized out of existence: an anarchic voyage into the unknown realms of human possibility–by turns uncanny, violent, ridiculous, and radiant. It’s a wonderful accomplishment.”

―Robert Inchausti, Author, The Ignorant Perfection of Ordinary People,
Spitwad Sutras, and Thomas Merton’s American Prophecy

 

“A wonderful, sensitive, and compelling read, with a sensibility in both content and style that is simply breath-taking.”

―Cathie Brettschneider, Humanities Editor, University of Virginia Press

 

Kaufman’s Hill captures the dynamics of the lost world of boyhood with sensitivity but without sentimentality, in a way no book has before.”

―Kevin Clark, Author, Self-Portrait with Expletives

 

“Touches on something about boyhood within the expansiveness of life that I can’t remember anyone doing, especially with this voice and perspective.”

―Al Landwehr, Writer of Short Fiction and Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo


Cal Poly Book Launch, Performing Arts Center

Phillips Hall, Saturday, January 31, 7 pm

San Diego, La Jolla

D.G. Wills Bookstore, Friday, February 20, 7pm

Los Angeles, Skylight Books

Saturday, February 21, 5 pm

CSU Fresno

Friday, February 27

San Francisco, Book Passage

Ferry Building, Wednesday, March 4, 6 pm

Santa Barbara, Chaucer’s Bookstore

Thursday, March 12, 7 pm

Sacramento, Authors on the Move Book Fair

Saturday, March 14

Pittsburgh, Mt Lebanon Library

Wednesday, March 18, 7 pm

Pittsburgh, Barnes and Noble

South Hills Village Mall, Thursday, March 19, 7 pm

Charlottesville, Virginia, Festival of the Book

Saturday, March 21, 12 pm

Washington DC, Kramer Books

Monday, March 23, 6:30 pm

Gettysburg College

Tuesday, March 24, 8 pm (co-sponsored by The Gettysburg Review)

Saratoga Springs, Northshire Books

Thursday, March 26, 6 pm

New York City, KGB Club

Saturday, March 28, 7 pm

New York City, McNally Jackson Bookstore

Sunday, March 29, 6 pm

Boston College

Tuesday, March 31, 4:30 pm, Stokes N203

Harvard COOP, Cambridge

Wednesday, April 1, 7 pm

Peterborough, NH

Toadstool Bookstore Saturday, April 4, 2 pm

Seattle, Elliott Bay Books

Saturday, April 11, 7 pm

SLO, Barnes and Noble

Friday, April 17, 7 pm

Denver, Univ. of Denver

Thursday, April 23, 4:00 – 5:30 pm, Sturm Hall 286

Denver, The Tattered Cover Bookstore

Friday, April 24, 7 pm

Denver, Lighthouse Writers Workshop

Saturday, April 25

CSU Bakersfield, Stiern Library PG&E Reading and Writer in Residence

Thursday, May 7

CSU Chico

Fall 2015

CSU San Jose

Fall 2015

CSU Sacramento, Library Speakers Series

2016