In “Hampton Heights,” the journalist Dan Kois’s second novel — a comic, gently spooky ’80s tale of boyhood, community and Burger King — six middle-school paperboys venture out to sell newspaper subscriptions in a sleepy, working-class neighborhood of Milwaukee. In the process, they make some startling discoveries about their city and themselves.
The boys work in pairs. Enticed by the promise of fast food and pocket money, and insufficiently supervised by their distracted manager, they start knocking on doors around Hampton Heights and each stumble onto an unexpected or frightening scene. Sigmone, a thoughtful Black boy who goes to a predominantly white school, and Joel, a wealthy, obnoxious white kid, find Sigmone’s missing grandfather, who introduces Sigmone to their peculiar shared heritage. Al, a poor kid with a hustler’s mind-set, joins forces with Nishu, a nervous, nerdy child of immigrants, to confront a sewer troll who makes off with their memories (and Al’s prized Playboy). And Ryan and Mark, who are more thinly sketched than the other boys, spend longer than they intend to with a pair of kindly women who feed them cookies and tell them a story that’s equal parts fairy tale and prophecy.
Each pair of boys is allotted one chapter, their story unfolding in its entirety before we move on to the next pair. In a longer book, this might derail the narrative momentum, but there’s not an ounce of fat on “Hampton Heights,” which is a slim 190 pages. Nor is the plot really the point here, as charming as it is. The joy of this book is in Kois’s warm, thoughtful depictions of the boys and the neighborhood.
It’s abundantly clear how much affection the author feels for his characters. He understands that 12-year-old boys are often annoying and gross, but he also displays deep empathy for adolescent awkwardness. Closely observed details, such as the bonding power of Weird Al Yankovic, Nishu’s backpack (which he wears like armor) or Joel’s fart tape, bring these boys to life.
Sigmone in particular is a standout. Kois shows exceptional sensitivity in depicting the experience of an adolescent Black kid who is forced to mature faster than, and face graver consequences than, his peers, and who is coming into his own awareness of how his skin affects others’ perceptions: “If he went around acting all boisterous like Joel, other kids — hell, his teachers — would be scared of him.” It’s particularly gratifying to watch his grandfather show him a new way to move through the world.
Similarly vibrant are the creatures who populate Hampton Heights. There are opinionated ghosts and lesbian witches, pro-union shape-shifters and opportunistic trolls. There’s even a hodag, a local cryptid said to be animated by the spirits of oxen who’d been worked to death. These entities reflect the folklore of the German and Scandinavian immigrants who settled the neighborhood in the 1800s, and there’s also a surprisingly rich narrative thread about the social activism of working-class communities. Hampton Heights is a healthy, if haunted, ecosystem, because its residents work hard to keep it that way.
It’s not really a spoiler to say that “Hampton Heights” has a happy ending. Nothing truly bad was ever going to happen to these boys; it’s not that kind of story. The stakes are life-size. It’s a testament to Kois’s sharp eye and warm heart — and his well-honed balance of earnest emotional truths, frightening moments and judiciously deployed scatological jokes — that the novel still feels fresh even in a post-“Stranger Things” world. There’s magic to be found everywhere, the book seems to say, especially where you least expect it.
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