Tony Ventura, the main character of Kevin Sampsell’s surreal novel Baby in the Night, doesn’t have the words or the context to understand his surroundings; he’s only two years old after all.
“It was like my brain really wanted to but my mouth didn’t know how yet or maybe just didn’t try hard enough,” Tony says of learning how to talk.
But as the first-person narrator, Tony is well-suited to describe his world in fresh ways. He can’t lean on stereotypes; he can only learn about the world as he perceives it, tabula rasa. This makes for a compelling story about a boy searching for his departed father, who he believes is the Moon. Tony shows childlike compassion for people living in poverty, including his own mother, as cynicism hasn’t yet damaged his world.
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Baby in the Night is Sampsell’s second novel, a surprisingly slight number, considering the author and micropress publisher’s prolific and varied output. While he’s likely best known for his 2010 memoir A Common Pornography and the 2013 This Is Between Us, Sampsell is also a fixture at Powell’s City of Books, where he introduces most author readings.
Sampsell’s new novel draws themes from the 1955 children’s book Harold and the Purple Crayon, in which a young boy draws the night world he wants to interact with. Tony too escapes into the night sometimes, where he encounters a “slumber party” in an alley and Dylan—a homeless, teenaged cousin with green, then orange, dyed hair who shows Tony around, takes him home, or out for doughnuts on occasion.
Dylan shares his story with Tony over a day-old doughnut. A string of bad luck, beginning in a broken childhood, keeps Dylan in fight or flight mode as he tries to get by. He describes his circumstances as a result of some choices, sure, but also an absurd sequence of events—involving bowling alley drug dealers and a man with a chimpanzee who briefly takes him in, only for Dylan to lose that housing too.
Tony listens without judgement. He’s the same with La-La, a woman who orders him a quesadilla while in search of his mother, and with others who pass by during his late night excursions. Through his innocence, readers have a chance to approach the relationships, loves, and undeniable community with curiosity, something too often destroyed by the limitations of words or learned heuristics.
Baby in the Night isn’t exactly a coming-of-age story—the character only ages from two to four. But in his search to understand how his father came to be the Moon, Tony learns a lot, like “when we find stuff to hate it means we’re becoming more like grown-ups.” Or, how everyone deserves to clear the obstacles placed in front of them.
“I learned something about myself that day, but I wasn’t sure exactly what,” Tony says after a doctor removes a cast from his broken arm. “Maybe that I belonged in one piece, or that I could be healed from anything.”
Maybe so, Tony. Maybe so.
Kevin Sampsell appears in conversation with Kimberly King Parsons at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside, Wed March 18, 7 pm, FREE, more info, all ages.