Baby in the Night

by Kevin Sampsell

Tony isn't afraid of the dark.

In fact, he’s drawn to the nighttime because he believes that the glowing moon is his father. Baby In the Night is a quietly moving novel that follows our narrator, Tony Volcano Ventura, through his childhood as he grows from a very curious baby into a street-smart toddler and preschooler. Living in a poor neighborhood with his loving mother, Tony grapples with the mystery of who his father is, where he might be, and what happened to him. Over the course of many surreal and secret nighttime forays, Tony eventually finds his way to the truth. Along the way, he befriends a teenage junkie and encounters various neighborhood characters: imposter moons, a giant dog, and a droopy-faced messenger. There’s also a mysterious fax machine found in an alleyway—the same alley that Tony thinks might be a hideout full of face-eating pigs. Told from Tony’s unusual point of view, Baby In the Night is a novel full of innocence, tragedy, and a melancholy shot through with magic and wonder.

Genres: Literature

230 pages, Paperback

Published March 17, 2026

About the author

I am the publisher of Future Tense Books in Portland, Oregon. I work at Powell's Books and also make collage art. I have written reviews and articles for various papers and mags. I have a few books out. My new novel, Baby in the Night, just came out. Previously, my memoir, A Common Pornography, was published by Harper Perennial and my first novel, This Is Between Us, was published by Tin House Books. I also edited Portland Noir, a book of crime fiction published by Akashic Books. My book of collage art and poetry, I Made an Accident, came out in 2022 from Clash Books.

Here's a few links to some stuff:
My essay on the loss of a friend, the loss of a book, and depression
My Tumblr of collage!
Flash Fiction on X-R-A-Y
My essay on Prince nostalgia and going to see The Revolution
My essay about coronavirus closing down Powell's
Short story at Hobart
The sad history of my football fandom
Flash Fiction on Wigleaf
My Paper Trumpets collage column at The Rumpus
Excerpts from This Is Between Us
My Longreads essay about my mom's Alzheimer's.
My Salon essay about suicide.
Short story on Joyland
Short fiction at The Rupture
Memoir excerpt on Smith Magazine.
I Know Who You Raped Last Summer.
My essay on bookselling and winning a Patterson bonus
On my first three kisses
Poems on Ink Node
Flash memoirs at 3am Magazine
Bookslut Interview
Flash Memoir pieces on McSweeney's
Fiction piece ("Options") on Identity Theory

Interview on The Rumpus

Reviews

[Claire Hopple · Rating 4 out of 5]

Refreshing, singular, necessary.

[Amanda’s Booked Up]

An odd but also unique story about a young child who sneaks out into the city at night to find answers about his dad through the moon. For me I think this was a bit too weird, especially since I currently have two young boys the same age as our narrator. This made it tricky to wrap my mind around the things our narrator was doing, thinking, and saying.

However, it did make me think about what really goes on in a child’s mind, how they perceive things, and what all they pick up on. Not my typical type of read but I’m glad to support a local independent author.

[Bookish Millennial]

Disclaimer: I don't star rate books. I know, I'm sorry. I just find them frustrating, and I'd rather just talk about what stood out to me in my reading experience. I hope you understand <3

I had to really suspend my disbelief because I know toddlers who do not have the vocabulary or attention span that our titular baby has, but once I wrapped my head around that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a bit bizarre and different from what I've read lately; I cannot say I've read anything else from the perspective of a baby and a toddler haha!

Beyond that, I loved how funny, tender, and bittersweet these nighttime adventures are for Tony. I don't want to spoil anything, but my heart did ache once we got towards the end of the narrative and certain things were revealed. As I read this, I ruminated on the fact that I stopped having this curiosity about my parents once I entered adolescence and young adulthood, and only recently, after a few of my grandparents' deaths has that curiosity reignited. I bring this up because Tony is so curious and brave in his search for answers about his father, and it then made so much sense why I was reading from the POV of a baby. That childlike wonder and hope. Sometimes, we lose it, and for me, this book was a salient reminder to be more curious about the elders in my life, and to see them beyond their relation to me (parent, grandparent, aunt, etc)

Thank you to Impeller Press for the print copy of the ARC - these opinions are my own, and the books from Impeller Press are always so beautiful (inside and out) and moving.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was totally charmed by this book—it’s like nothing else I’ve ever read.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm super happy with how this book came out and I'm grateful to Patrick Barber at Impeller Press for giving it so much care and thought. This book took about nine years to complete (yes, it really is told from the POV of a baby who sneaks out at night). After I finished it in 2020, it was another four years of rejections and hiccups to land at this publisher. I was starting to wonder if maybe the book wasn't very good, but as I was starting to get blurbs for it from so many writers I love and respect, I realized that it is actually really good! It's like nothing else I can think of, but I feel like it encapsulates so much of what I try to do as a writer: Creating a story that is funny, sweet, and weird. It's structurally adventurous but also smooth and accessible. Before the book came out, I read a printed ARC of it and all my worries and uncertainties faded away. I really do think this is the best thing I've ever written. I hope you like it as well. Thank you, everyone.
Pub date: 3/17/2026

[Lake Markham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baby in the Night is not just a beautiful book, it's proof that captivating fiction can still be written about our ever-enclosing world. Tony Volcano Ventura is as refreshing a speaker as he is a character; the perspective of a 12 year-old looking back on his childhood years steeps the novel in an aesthetics of searching. The childlike meditations on the moon lend Sampsell's prose a playful wink of melancholy, one that gestures at something beyond the deeply personal: Baby in the Night is a contemporary exploration of an eternal theme.