R.M. Hampton

R.M. Hampton, is the pen name adopted by James M. Thornberry to publish novels based in the South. His choice of a pen name taken from his father's first name, Raudon, his middle name, Michael and his mothers maiden name, Hampton brings focus to his immersion in the South. Born in Memphis, Tennessee in August of 1941 to a North Mississippi construction worker and a Missouri boot heel girl, barely ahead of World War Two, they spent the first twelve years of his life following construction jobs around the south until the family settled in the coal fields of Western Kentucky. His sixty year personal perspective of the twentieth century and of it's first forty gleaned from the personal accounts of his parents, relatives and 'old' friends from his youth endows him with a broad understanding unique to his generation. A life rich in experience, situations and characters adds depth and illumination to his work. While the characters and many of the locales of the books are, in detail, fictional amalgamation his stories ring with authenticity.