Kaufman's Hill

This sensitive and often sad memoir shows the same skill that Hampsey (Paranoia and Contentment) has brought to his many short stories and his work as a professor. The book, set in Pittsburgh between 1961 and 1968, begins with the seven-year-old Hampsey recounting his memories of a group of young boys discovering a dead rat at Kaufmann's Hill (spelled "Kaufman" in the title because of the way a sign looks from the hill's top) in the center of their neighborhood. This short chapter sets the stage for the rest of the themes that Hampsey explores: the youthful discovery of life and death, of sex and love, of family happiness and tragedy. All of the stories are linked by twilight; Hampsey proclaims, "Six to seven [p.m.] was my time%E2%80%94when I could go out and do whatever I wanted and not run into anyone." During those hours he can avoid bullies Teddy Keegan and Buddy Nevin, the troubled priests and teachers from his Catholic grammar school, and also his father, a distant man whose longing for something beyond his family made him "too serious and unhappy in a way everyone could tell, just by looking at him." Hampsey also shows the racial strife that begins to touch his early teens, but his focus is on capturing the furtive beauty of his youthful adventures during "that perfect playtime%E2%80%94the space between almost-dark and when the streetlights come on, when twilight really does exist for a while." (Mar.)