Hamilton Basso

Joseph Hamilton Basso (September 5, 1904 – May 13, 1964) was an American novelist and journalist.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Basso worked as reporter for several newspapers in New Orleans, wrote 11 novels, primarily about the South, and was an associate editor at The New Yorker for more than 20 years. His best-known work was the novel The View from Pompey's Head, a story of a New York City attorney who returns to his Southern hometown in the early 1950s to investigate a mystery surrounding a famous writer. The book spent almost a year on the bestseller lists in 1954 and later was adapted into a motion picture.

Awards His 1959 novel, The Light Infantry Ball, was a finalist for the 1960 National Book Award. It was a kind of prequel to The View from Pompey's Head, set in the same town, Pompey's Head, South Carolina, during the Civil War era.

Basso died in 1964, at age 59, in Weston, Connecticut.