Sunday, November 9, 2025
For Mike Figliola, of Bellmore, receiving some publicity for his book five years after releasing it was well worth the wait.
Figliola is finally hosting a book signing for his novel, “The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue,” at the Barnes & Noble in Massapequa on Nov. 15 at 2 p.m. The book was released in August 2020, but due to the pandemic, all interviews and promotional events were limited and held virtually.
After he spoke with the bookstore’s manager about potentially stocking the novel after a resurgence in popularity this year, Figliola said the owner was eager to highlight a local author.
“The next thing I know, he’s like, ‘I can do you one better. Why don’t we do a book signing?’” Figliola recalled. “‘And I’ll stock your book in the store.’”
Born and raised in Queens, the 47-year-old Figliola lived in New York City for 30 years before moving to Bellmore in December 2019. His novel explores the rich, layered culture of Queens. Growing up on the streets — “in a good way,” as he puts it — Figliola reminisces about spending his days playing in the schoolyard and exploring the culturally rich, interconnected neighborhoods of the city.
Each borough, he said, has its own distinct personality, and with his debut novel, Figliola sought to capture the essence of the people who make Cypress Avenue what it is.
“What inspired me to write ‘The Slow Midnight on Cypress Avenue’ was the people and the neighborhoods in the streets because they all seemed alive to me,” he said. “It seemed like everything had a story. And once you crossed over one avenue, you’d be in another.”
Offering readers a range of perspectives throughout a single Sunday, the novel unfolds in three parts: morning, afternoon and night. Within these sections, the overlapping dynamics of neighborhood, community and individual lives form a vivid vignette of Queens and New York life along Cypress Avenue.
“We’re all connected somehow, even though we come from such diverse backgrounds,” Figliola said.
With characters loosely inspired by real people — from a 60-year-old man living in a small apartment to two best friends who, as Figliola notes, “you would never think were best friends” — the story captures the genuine spirit and complexity of Queens.
“People are connected in a variety of good and bad ways, and I think a lot of that’s been lost today,” he said. “People don’t interact with each other the way they used to.”
For Figliola, capturing those intertwined stories isn’t just an artistic choice, but a way to honor the shared humanity and connection of the neighborhood where he grew up.
“The characters of my book are based on people,” he said. “I know them. They interact on street corners and stoops. They sit together and they talk, or they visit each other in an apartment and spend all day philosophizing or sharing a bottle of wine. And I think that’s been taken away from us a lot, especially during the pandemic.”
Figliola is working on his second novel, “Fine Is Flying Without You,” which exists in the same literary universe as his debut. The protagonist, a man in an unhappy marriage, decides to revisit the places and people of his youth in Woodhaven, Queens.
At the same time, he has working for eight years as an editorial producer for CNN.
As he retraces his past, he confronts the realization that the world he’s been longing for may not have been as perfect as he remembered.
“Sometimes you romanticize your past,” Figliola said, “and once you go back, you realize why you left it in the first place.”
Writing remains a constant in Figliola’s life — a way to capture the rhythm of city life and the emotions that run beneath it. Over the years, that same attention to neighborhood detail has carried into his poetry, even after his move to Bellmore.
“I got really involved in the local poetry scene out here,” he said.
While Figliola’s narrative stories remain rooted in Queens, his move to Bellmore has only deepened his appreciation for community. His two books highlight the people and neighborhoods in Queens, but after the move, he realized it’s really the same sense of connection there, too.
“These people (in the novel) were from Cypress Avenue, and they were interesting, but they could also be from Bellmore Avenue or Jerusalem Avenue,” Figliola said. “Cypress Avenue isn’t specific to Cypress Avenue.”
That connection — the everyday bonds that tie people and places together — continues to inspire Figliola’s storytelling, prose and poetry.
“But my dream, if I could do anything, I’d be able to write novels all day,” he said.
