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The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue
“Mike Figliola’s The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is a street level gaze at Queens, New York in the offbeat tradition of Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski. There is a raw honesty to this three-part novel which kept me spellbound. Figliola is an irrepressible writer with the heart of a poet and the eyes of a journalist. Highly recommended!!—Douglas Brinkley, Editor of Windblown The Journals of Jack Kerouac and Literary Executor of the Hunter S. Thompson Estate
So, who are these irregular regulars of Cypress Avenue?
Set over the course of one Sunday, The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is a collection of interconnected vignettes that takes the reader through the streets and across sidewalks of Cypress Avenue—an unkempt afterthought, just a place that sits at the neighborhood border edge of Ridgewood Queens, NY.
The three-part book—broken into Morning, Afternoon, and Night—introduces you to the irregular regulars of the human race.
There is the soft and strange relationship between the eccentric Samuel Jean and a young girl of Puerto Rican descent named Desponda “Dezzy” Rivera. There’s “Old” Goldie Samuels, a washed-up relic who spends her days spinning yarns and getting free drinks at the local liquor store. But the story is truly centered on Corporal Benjamin Zogby, a veteran who spends his days alone on his stoop watching the bus go by and wishing his love would return to him. It’s his tragic fate that sends the avenue and the other inhabitants you’ll meet—Earl the fisherman, Father John White, among others—into an unstoppable tailspin toward unexpected change and inner destruction.
So, who are these irregular regulars of Cypress Avenue?
Set over the course of one Sunday, The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is a collection of interconnected vignettes that takes the reader through the streets and across sidewalks of Cypress Avenue—an unkempt afterthought, just a place that sits at the neighborhood border edge of Ridgewood Queens, NY.
The three-part book—broken into Morning, Afternoon, and Night—introduces you to the irregular regulars of the human race.
There is the soft and strange relationship between the eccentric Samuel Jean and a young girl of Puerto Rican descent named Desponda “Dezzy” Rivera. There’s “Old” Goldie Samuels, a washed-up relic who spends her days spinning yarns and getting free drinks at the local liquor store. But the story is truly centered on Corporal Benjamin Zogby, a veteran who spends his days alone on his stoop watching the bus go by and wishing his love would return to him. It’s his tragic fate that sends the avenue and the other inhabitants you’ll meet—Earl the fisherman, Father John White, among others—into an unstoppable tailspin toward unexpected change and inner destruction.
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Paperback
Published August 4, 2020
6 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Mike Figliola
1 book16 followersMike Figliola is a writer, television/radio reporter, and producer who has called New York City—specifically Queens—his home for more than thirty years. He has written hundreds of poems and has read them on a regular basis at such venues as the famed Cornelia Street Café in NYC with Famed Classical Composer, Conductor, and Multi-instrumentalist David Amram, actor John Ventimiglia and poet Frank Messina, and has been a featured poet in the Brooklyn Poet Laureate’s “Brooklyn Poetry Outreach” in Park Slope Brooklyn. He has served as a producer, writer, and reporter in radio and TV on both local and national platforms.
PRAISE FOR MIKE FIGLIOLA:
"Mike Figiola's The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is a street level gaze at Queens, New York in the offbeat tradition of Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski. There is a raw honesty to this three part novel which kept me spellbound. Figliola is an irrepressible writer with the heart of a poet and the eyes of a journalist Highly recommended!!" --Douglas Brinkley is editor of Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouacand is literary executor of the Hunter S. Thompson estate
"Consistently captivating audiences with his youthful dynamism and sincerity. Mike is a natural writer and poet, and everyone who has ever read his work or heard him read it himself knows it." -- David Amram, Famed Classical Composer, Conductor, and Multi-instrumentalist
"I spent five seasons in Queens, NY, prowling center field of Shea Stadium. Mike Figliola captures the heartbeat of NYC better than any book I know." -- Lenny Dykstra, New York Times Bestselling Author of "House of Nails"
"Mike Figliola's debut novel The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is the untapped prose of both people and place rarely given life in the way newcomer Figliola has accomplished. The relationships between the characters are so tangible you can almost sense their presence rise up from the pages, centered around the life of a veteran whose all-seeing eyes on his front stoop help intertwine this story of humanity, horror, aspiration, loss, and hope." -- Salena Zito, Author, "The Great Revolt" and national political reporter for the Washington Examiner and NY Post
"It's been over a decade since Mike Figliola was my producer on WOR's hit show Food Talk, but his daily witticisms, brilliant storytelling, and creative genius are as fresh a memory as my first day of school. The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is the happy benefactor of Mike's years of toil as a writer. It's set in a reluctant neighborhood in Queens, New York, and features characters and stories only found in a Manhattan-adjacent 'hood' like Ridgewood. Part magic, part audacious, and always impossible to believe, Mr. Figliola keeps it very interesting on Cypress Avenue." -- Rocco Dispirito, James Beard Award-winning celebrity chef and author of "Rocco's Keto Comfort Food Diet: Eat the Foods You Miss and Still Lose Up to a Pound a Day
"Only a real Queens guy could ever have written this book. It oozes authenticity: the larger-than-life characters and egos, the gruff spoken word poetry of the dialogue, the world-weary swagger, the A train, the dope and the booze—there's just no faking this stuff. Filled with humor and heartbreak, Figs makes you feel like you're actually part of a neighborhood where nothing comes easy, but beauty abounds in gritty everyday reality." -- Elie Honig, CNN Legal Analyst and former federal prosecutor
PRAISE FOR MIKE FIGLIOLA:
"Mike Figiola's The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is a street level gaze at Queens, New York in the offbeat tradition of Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski. There is a raw honesty to this three part novel which kept me spellbound. Figliola is an irrepressible writer with the heart of a poet and the eyes of a journalist Highly recommended!!" --Douglas Brinkley is editor of Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouacand is literary executor of the Hunter S. Thompson estate
"Consistently captivating audiences with his youthful dynamism and sincerity. Mike is a natural writer and poet, and everyone who has ever read his work or heard him read it himself knows it." -- David Amram, Famed Classical Composer, Conductor, and Multi-instrumentalist
"I spent five seasons in Queens, NY, prowling center field of Shea Stadium. Mike Figliola captures the heartbeat of NYC better than any book I know." -- Lenny Dykstra, New York Times Bestselling Author of "House of Nails"
"Mike Figliola's debut novel The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is the untapped prose of both people and place rarely given life in the way newcomer Figliola has accomplished. The relationships between the characters are so tangible you can almost sense their presence rise up from the pages, centered around the life of a veteran whose all-seeing eyes on his front stoop help intertwine this story of humanity, horror, aspiration, loss, and hope." -- Salena Zito, Author, "The Great Revolt" and national political reporter for the Washington Examiner and NY Post
"It's been over a decade since Mike Figliola was my producer on WOR's hit show Food Talk, but his daily witticisms, brilliant storytelling, and creative genius are as fresh a memory as my first day of school. The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue is the happy benefactor of Mike's years of toil as a writer. It's set in a reluctant neighborhood in Queens, New York, and features characters and stories only found in a Manhattan-adjacent 'hood' like Ridgewood. Part magic, part audacious, and always impossible to believe, Mr. Figliola keeps it very interesting on Cypress Avenue." -- Rocco Dispirito, James Beard Award-winning celebrity chef and author of "Rocco's Keto Comfort Food Diet: Eat the Foods You Miss and Still Lose Up to a Pound a Day
"Only a real Queens guy could ever have written this book. It oozes authenticity: the larger-than-life characters and egos, the gruff spoken word poetry of the dialogue, the world-weary swagger, the A train, the dope and the booze—there's just no faking this stuff. Filled with humor and heartbreak, Figs makes you feel like you're actually part of a neighborhood where nothing comes easy, but beauty abounds in gritty everyday reality." -- Elie Honig, CNN Legal Analyst and former federal prosecutor
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 28, 2021
I have been looking forward to reviewing Mike Figliolas seminal work: The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue. Over the years I have been listening to his work at Ken Siegelman's Poetry Outreach in Park Slope, Brooklyn and have followed much of his work. Please standby for the review of the Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue.
July 4, 2021
Good read! I lived in Ridgewood, Queens, on Woodbine Street between St. Nicholas and Cypress avenues, from birth until the age of thirteen when my family moved to Northern Virginia. I purchased Mike Figliola's book because of its setting of my old neighborhood. Granted, I'm 62 years old now and it was more than 50 years ago that I left NYC, but the neighborhood of Ridgewood will always hold a special place in my heart and those bigger-than-life personalities of which the author so eloquently writes will never be forgotten. Ridgewood may have changed from back in my day, when it was predominantly German and Irish and Italian, to what it is now, largely Hispanic, but in reading, The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue, it becomes evident that the lives of "quiet desperation," as Henry David Thoreau once said about the "mass of men," are not all that altered. For there, in Ridgewood, on the border of Brooklyn and Queens, the struggles of Humanity in all of its colors and flavors and forms, remain much the same.
February 22, 2021
Reminiscent of Lanford Wilson’s play, The Hot l Baltimore, The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue centers around a gritty cast of characters in a well defined place. And not just any place, a corner of Queens. But Figliola’s story has more heart and more tenderness for his place and people. The down and out, over the course of one Sunday, take turns sharing their point of view. It is clear that Figs knows these characters and place intimately. Their interweaving narratives was an engrossing story. Pour a scotch, sit on your front stoop, and dive in.
May 5, 2023
I grew up on Long Island, and the distinct New York rhythm of the text felt so familiar to me. The effect was amplified by the excellent audiobook narration. The first time I listened, it was almost musical as I absorbed the character of the neighborhood.
"The character of the neighborhood." That came out unintentionally, but in a way, the neighborhood itself is the main character, and the people within it seem like cells in a body, gears in a clock, or ants in a colony. It raises the question of whether free will exists and, if free will is limited or nonexistent, how much responsibility these characters have for their actions. This is brought up in a conversation between two teens and close friends, Lorraine and Lollie. Lorraine latches onto the phrase "no man is innocent," and Lollie makes a case for why everyone is innocent.
The book is divided into three parts: morning, afternoon, and night and the story takes place from morning until midnight on a single day. Each chapter is from the perspective of someone in the neighborhood, giving an intimate look into their inner lives. Several of the characters experience guilt, loss, and regret over having done things that they wish they hadn't. Mike Figliola treats every character with dignity and humanity. It reminds me of a quote that is often attributed to Plato: "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle." These people are battle-worn, and the author encourages us to expand our hearts toward them and everyone we meet because you never know what someone is going through or the circumstances they're enmeshed in.
As soon as I finished my first listen to the audiobook, I immediately started listening to it again. This time, the perspectives wove together. The neighborhood came into focus in my mind like a train the characters were trapped on, inevitable, speeding towards whatever unsavory thing they don't really want to do but often end up doing anyway. The book explores different avenues for getting off the train (out of the neighborhood) such as spontaneously boarding a bus, following the train tracks out of town on foot, addiction, religion, and death. There are also characters who don't want to leave, celebrating the train ride because it's all they have:
"Haven't you guys ever felt like this neighborhood is damned?...no one visits and no one wants to be here. But yet we all remain. We all live day to day, check to check in sorrow behind the bottle and the drugs, and even knowing this none of us ever leaves. It's almost as if we are trapped here...I am telling you this is a deal with the devil gone wrong and no amount of praying...is going to change any of it for any of us."
Keith kicked his chair back, stood up, and saluted the bar.
"Well as long as I have my booze and Nunny's (the liquor store) I'll stay in hell."
Jim and Dave stood up as well and the three of them clanked their glasses together.
"To Hell!" said Keith.
"To the devil!" shouted Dave.
"Amen," laughed Jim.
At the end of the day, Slow Midnight shows different ways that each character seeks hope, even when circumstances are unlikely to change. I'll definitely be reading it again, seeking my own version of hope on Cypress Avenue.
"The character of the neighborhood." That came out unintentionally, but in a way, the neighborhood itself is the main character, and the people within it seem like cells in a body, gears in a clock, or ants in a colony. It raises the question of whether free will exists and, if free will is limited or nonexistent, how much responsibility these characters have for their actions. This is brought up in a conversation between two teens and close friends, Lorraine and Lollie. Lorraine latches onto the phrase "no man is innocent," and Lollie makes a case for why everyone is innocent.
The book is divided into three parts: morning, afternoon, and night and the story takes place from morning until midnight on a single day. Each chapter is from the perspective of someone in the neighborhood, giving an intimate look into their inner lives. Several of the characters experience guilt, loss, and regret over having done things that they wish they hadn't. Mike Figliola treats every character with dignity and humanity. It reminds me of a quote that is often attributed to Plato: "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle." These people are battle-worn, and the author encourages us to expand our hearts toward them and everyone we meet because you never know what someone is going through or the circumstances they're enmeshed in.
As soon as I finished my first listen to the audiobook, I immediately started listening to it again. This time, the perspectives wove together. The neighborhood came into focus in my mind like a train the characters were trapped on, inevitable, speeding towards whatever unsavory thing they don't really want to do but often end up doing anyway. The book explores different avenues for getting off the train (out of the neighborhood) such as spontaneously boarding a bus, following the train tracks out of town on foot, addiction, religion, and death. There are also characters who don't want to leave, celebrating the train ride because it's all they have:
"Haven't you guys ever felt like this neighborhood is damned?...no one visits and no one wants to be here. But yet we all remain. We all live day to day, check to check in sorrow behind the bottle and the drugs, and even knowing this none of us ever leaves. It's almost as if we are trapped here...I am telling you this is a deal with the devil gone wrong and no amount of praying...is going to change any of it for any of us."
Keith kicked his chair back, stood up, and saluted the bar.
"Well as long as I have my booze and Nunny's (the liquor store) I'll stay in hell."
Jim and Dave stood up as well and the three of them clanked their glasses together.
"To Hell!" said Keith.
"To the devil!" shouted Dave.
"Amen," laughed Jim.
At the end of the day, Slow Midnight shows different ways that each character seeks hope, even when circumstances are unlikely to change. I'll definitely be reading it again, seeking my own version of hope on Cypress Avenue.
October 11, 2023
The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue by Mike Figliola is a pleasant street-level gaze at Queens, New York, in the reminiscent connectedness of Raymond Carver’s Short Cuts & David Mitchell’s literary universe. There is a raw honesty to this three-part novel which kept me spellbound. Similar to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, taking place in the course of one day, Figliola goes all James Joyce & separates the day in three parts (morning, afternoon & day) with distinctive characters interacting with each other & going about their day filled with humanity, horror, aspiration, loss, and hope.
“There is the soft and strange relationship between the eccentric Samuel Jean and a young girl of Puerto Rican descent named Desponda “Dezzy” Rivera. There’s “Old” Goldie Samuels, a washed-up relic who spends her days spinning yarns and getting free drinks at the local liquor store. But the story is genuinely centred on Corporal Benjamin Zogby, a veteran who spends his days alone on his stoop watching the bus go by and wishing his love would return to him. It’s his tragic fate that sends the avenue and the other inhabitants you’ll meet—Earl the fisherman, Father John White, among others—into an unstoppable tailspin toward unexpected change & inner destruction.”
For a debut novel, Figliola certainly accomplishes the art of fiction that contains smart & punchy writing in the dialogue & the action lines. Even though I’m not from Queens, or America in general, I felt right at home with one. Makes me want to connect with all of my neighbours & past neighbours & give them a warm embrace.
January 13, 2026
2.5 stars. I wanted to like this more than I did. The author certainly has some talent with words and an interesting perspective, and I liked the idea of a series of interconnected vignettes painting a portrait of a particular Queens, NY neighborhood. But this tale was just relentlessly bleak and depressing. It follows a group of lost souls who will never overcome their miserable circumstances, their addictions and their emptiness. Toward the end, several of them come to the conclusion that they are actually in hell and raise a toast to the devil himself, while a vaguely demonic-looking bartender declares drinks are on the house.
No one grows or changes, and there is no one to root for, except maybe Dezzy. I really wanted her to break away, to find salvation, but in the end she was as lost as the others. I kept hoping someone would rise above and become the hero of this story but it didn’t happen. There were two who escaped the neighborhood, but not in a good way and it was explicitly acknowledged they would be back.
There were many interesting and even poetic moments, but overall the story lacked meaning. It was mainly an account of a day when terrible things happened to some pitiable people in a blighted Queens neighborhood. You might enjoy this for the poetry of the writing and the vivid depictions of the characters and neighborhood (if you’re okay with pointless human suffering and despair), but it’s not for me.
No one grows or changes, and there is no one to root for, except maybe Dezzy. I really wanted her to break away, to find salvation, but in the end she was as lost as the others. I kept hoping someone would rise above and become the hero of this story but it didn’t happen. There were two who escaped the neighborhood, but not in a good way and it was explicitly acknowledged they would be back.
There were many interesting and even poetic moments, but overall the story lacked meaning. It was mainly an account of a day when terrible things happened to some pitiable people in a blighted Queens neighborhood. You might enjoy this for the poetry of the writing and the vivid depictions of the characters and neighborhood (if you’re okay with pointless human suffering and despair), but it’s not for me.
October 9, 2021
Figliola's debut announces the arrival of a fantastic new voice in American literature. This guy is a major talent with a great ear for dialogue and a nose for authentic character, not to mention the ability to create a vibrant atmosphere. If you're looking for a great slice of urban life, look no further than Slow Midnight.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews