Kaufman's Hill

In the tradition of classic American memoirs, John C. Hampsey's Kaufman's Hill offers a lyrical and evocative journey back to a boyhood in Pittsburgh during the early to mid-1960s. The memoir is a deeply personal and reflective coming-of-age story, told through the eyes of the young author, a character as compelling as Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. The narrative is firmly rooted in a middle-class Catholic neighborhood, a world that is both a sanctuary and a source of imminent dangers. Hampsey paints a vivid picture of this lost world of boyhood, where youthful adventures are defined by an exhilarating freedom due to the absence of direct adult supervision.

The children inhabit a rugged landscape of hills, creeks, and woods, a space where they navigate a complex social hierarchy ruled by a family of bullies. This setting, with its specific Pittsburgh hills, bridges, and rivers, captures the sights and sounds of a society on the cusp of change. What sets Kaufman's Hill apart is its profound exploration of memory and the way the past shapes the present self. The author delves into the process of "brain-building," a term borrowed from critic Walter Pater, to describe how "little shapes, voices, accidents...become parts of the great chain wherewith we are bound."

Hampsey's narrative is an honest record of this symbolism, a searing away of the layered past to reveal the truth as he remembers it. Beyond the personal adventures, the memoir is a chronicle of a society on the brink of significant change. The boys' world exists just before the heavy influences of the counter-culture take hold, at a time when suburban society begins to encroach on their wild sanctuary. Praised by literary figures like Howard Zinn and Tim O'Brien, Kaufman's Hill has been called "the best book written on American boyhood in decades." It is a sensitive, often sad, and deeply beautiful story that resonates with readers by capturing the dynamics of a world that is at once similar and alien to modern life.

John C. Hampsey is the author of Paranoia and Con­tentment: A Personal Essay on Western Thought, which won enthusiastic endorsements from Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Tim O’Brien. O’Brien judged the book to be “sharply reasoned and intellectually bold . . . This beautifully written book turns upside down our standard think­ing about creativity, imagination, and what it is to be wholly human.”

Hampsey has published more than thirty stories and essays in such places as The Gettysburg Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Antioch Review, The Alaska Quarter­ly, and Philosophy and Literature.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Hampsey now lives in California.

He is Professor of Romantic and Classical Literature at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, where he has won the University Distin­guished Teaching Award.

Hampsey’s Kaufman’s Hill memoir was published in hardcover in 2015, and in paperback in October 2025.

His novel, Soda Lake, was published in 2025.

For more information visit www.johnchampsey.com