By Adam Christopher

Century, out now

 

It’s Christmas, 1984 in Hawkins and Eleven has questions. As the town settles down from the latest batch of otherworldly assaults and thoughts turn to the festive season, she asks her adoptive father about his past. To both their surprises, he tells her.

Adam Christopher expertly combines four things here to tell a story which sits perfectly by itself but also complements the core text of the show. The first of these are the characters and he has a deeply impressive ear for them. Eleven’s polite but literal approach is endearing and genuine but it’s Hopper who is the star here. Christopher absolutely nails the Sheriff’s long-suffering, laconic delivery and that means that when Hopper starts talking we listen. Especially as he has a tale to tell.

The second is far more insidious and harder to grasp: tone. Stranger Things as a series does its best work on the outer edge of approaching dread and that’s exactly the foundation here. Hopper in 1977 is a happily married NYPD detective with a young daughter. We know what’s coming even though he doesn’t and the imminent personal tragedy is cleverly interwoven with his past in Vietnam, decision to leave Hawkins and the exact nature of the case. The end result is a story which feels very much its own thing, tonally closer to the likes of Serpico and Across 110th Street than Close Encounters, but remains closely connected to the main show. The platonic ideal of tie in fiction in other words.

Thirdly, there’s the way the book works with and builds on history. The infamous 1977 New York blackout is a pivotal part of the story as is Hopper’s time in Vietnam. Both, along with the move to the big city, give an impression of danger and historical context that never slows the book down. This works so well in fact that at one point Christopher is actually able to flat out state a character is going to make it out okay and we still worry about them.

Finally, there’s the same kindness running through the centre of this story as there is through Stranger Things at its best. Hopper is a fundamentally good man who wants to help and that gives the book an intensely strong moral compass. It also cleverly provides something for the morally ambiguous antagonists to play off as well as setting up another element of Hopper’s eventual fall back to Hawkins. Oh and in a wonderfully tidy piece of plotting, why he has problems with authority.

All these factors combine to make Darkness on the Edge of Town intensely impressive work all the way through. If you’re a fan and you’re looking for more, this and Gwenda Bond’s Suspicious Minds are essential.

Verdict: Complex, gripping, and perfectly in lockstep with the show this is great stuff. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart

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