Dan Kois is a writer, editor, and podcaster at Slate, where his work has been nominated for two National Magazine Awards and two Writers Guild Awards. He’s the author of the novel Vintage Contemporaries; How to Be a Family, a memoir; The World Only Spins Forward, with Isaac Butler, which was a 2019 Stonewall Honor Book; and Facing Future, a book of music criticism and biography. He is a frequent guest and host of Slate's Culture Gabfest podcast, was a founding host of Slate's Mom and Dad Are Fighting podcast, and hosts The Martin Chronicles, a podcast about Martin Amis. Dan grew up in Milwaukee, where his first job was as a paperboy delivering the Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper. He now lives with his family in Virginia. His latest novel is Hampton Heights and he recently talked about it with Daryl Maxwell for the LAPL Blog.
What was your inspiration for Hampton Heights?
I worked on my first novel, Vintage Contemporaries, for seven years, and really poured everything I was going through and thinking about into it. It's a classic first novel in that way; it maps my obsessions pretty obviously, and toward the end of the process, it was hard to wrangle all the material into a shape that resembled a coherent story. The book was published when I was 48, and I thought: I don't want to do it this way every time. I didn't want to publish a novel every seven years! How many more novels would that mean—three, maybe?
So I set out to write a book that was the opposite of the first in nearly every way. Vintage Contemporaries sprawled across decades; this time, I decided to write a story that took place over one night. Vintage Contemporaries has an intricate chronological structure full of temporal reveals; this time, I decided to just tell the story for each character from beginning to end. Vintage Contemporaries was about the concerns and enthusiasms of young women; this time, I thought it would be fun to write about boys figuring out manhood. With Vintage Contemporaries, I felt like I was figuring out its genre and lineage on the fly; with the new book, I knew from the get-go I wanted to write an ode to the adventures I snuck off my parents' shelves.
Are Al, Joel, Kevin, Mark, Nishu, Ryan, Sigmone, or any of the other characters in the novel inspired by or based on specific individuals?
Al, Joel, Mark, Nishu, Ryan, and Sigmone all sport mixed-and-matched names from kids I went to elementary school with, and each one is similarly mixed and matched from three or four or five kids I remember, plus a heaping helping of imagination. I was a paperboy, and Kevin is based on my stupid manager, Kevin.
How did the novel evolve and change as you wrote and revised it? Are there any characters or scenes that were lost in the process that you wish had made it to the published version?
The big leap happened a week in when I enjoyed writing about these kids but felt like their stories needed something a little… more. That's when I started writing about the witches. Why shouldn't they encounter monsters, I realized—why wouldn't they think that might happen?
There is a real Hampton Heights neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Did you base the Hampton Heights in your novel on the real location? Does the real Hampton Heights have a reputation for being haunted?
I spent a lot of time picking out the right neighborhood for these kids to have an adventure in. The remarkable online anthropology/history project Neighborhoods in Milwaukee was a tremendous resource, helping me find a part of town that in the late 1980s was truly in flux, with a growing Black population moving into a once-majority German section of town. The factories were closing, times were tough, and it seemed like the neighborhood was an interesting mix of the Old World and the New.
And I remembered driving past the Hampton House tavern all the time, with its jaunty sign and glowing windows.
The neighborhood has no particular reputation for being haunted, as far as I know. But it did turn out my parents lived there when they first got married—on a block where Sigmone and Joel canvass.
What drew you to set Hampton Heights in 1987?
Pure laziness! I was the age of these kids in 1987, so I thought I had a pretty good handle on what they'd be listening to, watching, and reading.
Kevin promises his paperboys a dinner at Burger King once they have spent the evening selling new subscriptions. Why is Burger King of all of the fast food options available?
In those days, Burger King was the scrappy underdog fast-food option, the rebel's choice when compared to the unstoppable behemoth that was McDonald's.
Your biography says that you grew up in Milwaukee and that you were a paperboy for the Milwaukee Sentinel. Do you have any favorite places in Milwaukee? A hidden gem that someone visiting should not miss but would only learn about from a resident?
The witches' house in Hampton Heights looks a lot like the residence of Mary Nohl, a wonderful folk artist whose sculpture-filled yard and house in Fox Point have been a pilgrimage for art lovers (and teenagers on a dare) since I was a kid. Nohl died in 2001, and the residence was taken over by the Kohler Foundation, which is preserving the house (much to the chagrin of Mary's killjoy neighbors, who love to yell at people who park on the street to look at the house).
You've worked on podcasts, written works of fiction and non-fiction, and a memoir. Is there one format that you prefer over the others?
Podcasts are definitely the funniest! All you do is talk.
Is there something you haven't done yet but are hoping to have the opportunity to try?
I used to write a lot of plays and would love to do that again. If any theater wants to commission a comedy set at a pickup basketball game for middle-aged guys… call me.
The end of Hampton Heights seems to indicate that the adventure for Kevin and his paperboys may not be over. Do you plan to take readers back to 1987 for further exploits?
Nope!
What's currently on your nightstand?
I'm a big proponent of travel guides—I find them the best way to plan for a trip. We've got family trips to Morocco and Japan coming in the next year or two, so I've got Rough Guides to both those countries on the nightstand—plus galleys of a few books I'm thinking about reviewing for Slate, like Peter Ames Carlin's book about R.E.M., coming in November.
Can you name your top five favorite or most influential authors?
I cannot. There are too many! But I did recently get to write about one of them, Ian Frazier.
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, a brilliant, funny masterpiece of children’s writing.
Was there a book you felt you needed to hide from your parents?
My parents, like many parents in the 1970s and 1980s, did not police my reading even a tiny bit. That didn't seem important to them, I guess; they figured, rightly, that I would be fine, whatever I read. So, the only reading materials I hid from my parents were actual naked-lady magazines.
Is there a book you've faked reading?
I spent many years as a literary agent and then a literary scout, jobs in which you frequently have to pretend you've read something you haven't because you're constantly jockeying to seem the most plugged-in. It drove me crazy, so these days, I try to be very honest when I simply have not read a book. It's OK! There are a lot of books.
Can you name a book you've bought for the cover?
I can name dozens. I shop at used bookstores all the time and frequently buy books because of their amazing covers. Recently, I purchased this book entirely because of the very funny cover layout, which delighted me.
Can you name a book for which you are an evangelist (and you think everyone should read)?
I have given away a half-dozen copies of Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, which I consider the great American short novel. There's nothing like it on this earth.
What is the last piece of art (music, movies, TV, more traditional art forms) that you've experienced or that has impacted you?
I mean… what kind of life are you living if you are not experiencing art all the time? Last week, I admired some enchanting mini-landscapes by an artist named Kathleen Vance at an exhibition at the Albany airport. Yesterday, our family went to Nationals Park in Washington, DC, for Opera in the Outfield, an annual event where you get to sit on the left-field grass while they show a Washington National Opera production (in this case, Turandot) on the Jumbotron. This afternoon, I read volume 1 of a manga my daughter's been trying to get me to pick up, called Chainsaw Man (it's about a guy who's also a chainsaw). And as I write this, I am listening to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings' beautiful new album.
What is the question that you're always hoping you'll be asked but never have been?
"Do you have an amazing idea that will solve climate change and make world peace possible?"
What is your answer?
"Alas, no."
What are you working on now?
I'm in the very early stages of a novel set in 1850s Dublin about a pair of stone-carving brothers. This week, an actual stone carver is gonna let me work on some marble in his studio! Hopefully, I will not lose all my typing fingers in a chiseling accident.
