.010 This reading experience changed me
I went to the woods with 16 strangers and no cell coverage and came back a new man
Two weeks ago, I went to the woods with 16 strangers and no cell coverage and came back a new man. No, this isn’t the start of the newest Donna Tartt novel. No mysterious cult or secret bacchanals (though, come to think of it… we did have a night of revelry around a fire, swam in a lake, and drew strange shapes blindfolded, all shepherded by the most charismatic of hosts, so… you decide!) Intrigued yet? This was PAGE BREAK, a literary experience like no other.
This letter is longer than most and filled with the most beautiful photography by Emilio Buitrago, so consider reading in your browser for the best experience.
On a Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I found myself lingering outside of Five Leaves Coffee in Greenpoint, looking for others with weekend bags like me. I first spotted Divya; then met Anna (who had just landed an hour ago at JFK from Minnesota!); Evan and Hannah introduced themselves, and by the end of the hour, there were ten of us, freshly acquainted, loading our weekenders into the back of a passenger van, and preparing for the three-and-a-half-hour drive out of the city, to Steady Slope, a wooded piece of property near Delhi in the Catskills.
About a month prior, I’d met Mikey Friedman serendipitously at McNally Jackson Seaport for the launch of Yasmin Zahar’s The Coin. The meeting was brief, but when I followed up on Instagram, I discovered that this was someone who had created something truly special. Over glasses of natty wine (very appropriate as you’ll see!) at Rhodora a couple of weeks later, Mikey shared the story of how Page Break started.
The seed of the idea was planted five years ago when Mikey was thinking about joining a book club. “I was interested in meeting new people but joining a book club kind of feels like a lot of work and a big commitment,” Mikey told me. Being tasked with the homework of reading and preparing thoughts for a book club discussion was unappealing. I’m sure many of us have had a similar experience. And so an idea was dashed off in the notes app: “What if we could do a book club in a weekend?”
For the next five years, the idea grew and evolved. “I’ve been taking notes in my phone for five years basically about Page Break,” Mikey told me. The addition of chef-led dinners and wine pairings came together naturally because of Mikey’s abiding love for food and wine. It also expands Page Break’s appeal beyond hardcore readers. “You can find out about Page Break through a local restaurant or wine shop.”
Then came the coup de grace that would set Page Break apart from other reading retreats: reading aloud.
“Reading aloud is something so innate to our history. For millennia, that’s how we told stories,” Mikey told me. “Reading or speaking aloud.” It’s a thought I’ve had as well. The oral storytelling tradition is far older than the written one, and yet we have limited access to out-loud storytelling in our present day. What’s more, research shows that reading aloud improves people’s sense of well-being, belonging, and purpose. As adults especially, unless you’re reading to a child, or perhaps a lover, we so rarely hear stories aloud. This is why I love our New York reading series and in fact, why this newsletter was created.
What if we could do a book club in a weekend?
This was the fourth official Page Break Retreat that Mikey has hosted (after two trial runs with friends earlier this year) and a first in two respects — the first time Page Break went camping and the first time Mikey partnered with another host. Jacob Willner of Treetop Journeys provided beautiful tents and the most comfortable camp pads I’ve ever slept on, complete with charming wool blankets, and delicious breakfasts.
To fit the setting, Mikey told me his criteria for choosing a book for this retreat was to find something outdoorsy and wooded. When he came across Fire Exit he knew it was perfect. Besides, part of the mission of Page Break is to break down the barriers in publishing. “It’s important for me to read queer authors and diverse authors, and I’m really making an effort to hold myself to that,” Mikey said.
Friday
So it was that the ten of us in the van Friday headed out of the city into the wilds. We collectively soundtracked our drive from Greenpoint to Steady Slope, already getting to know each other through our music tastes, until we reached a point in the Catskills where all of our cell service cut out and we were left to what music I had downloaded on Spotify — an exercise in becoming creative within parameters.
In retrospect, that moment we crossed the bridge traversing Lake Delaware, when our cell service stopped, was like a portal into a dreamland, where the only relevant things were the 16 of us, the woods, the dogs on the property, and one delicious novel. The symbolism of that bridge would become beautifully linked to the bridge in Morgan Talty’s Fire Exit, a consistent device used to divide the story.
We all knew what we were getting into in theory, but I don’t think any of us fully understood what the practice of communal reading was going to be like. “Like dancing, everyone has their own way of reading,” Mikey said by way of introducing the Page Break format, and the comparison couldn’t have been more apt. Sitting in a large circle, each of us reading two pages at a time, listening to the shifting cadences and tones of each person’s reading voice, felt as subtly magnificent as being out on the dance floor, contributing and reacting to a collective creative consciousness.
That feeling of collective consciousness deepened over our first meal Friday night. The “Secret Menu Tacos,” conceived of and prepared by Chef Eric See of Ursula, were made entirely over the open fire and inspired by direct quotes from the book mentioning food. This is yet another part of the attention to detail that Mikey brings to Page Break. Before every event, he scours the selected book for every single reference to food, flagging them all, and then compiling them in a document that he shares with the chef. Together, they develop two menus inspired by the text.
Friday night’s meal was family style, starting with totopos inspired by Lunchables and passing around dishes of tomatillo-braised rabbit, quelites with pickled cholla buds (one of my two favorite things I ate all weekend!), and ending with a pine nut and semolina cake.
Saturday
I had the best sleep of many months that night and woke refreshed, to morning light filtering through the woods and into my tent Saturday morning. Bit by bit, we gathered in the morning sun down by the main house at Steady Slope, where we began our day with yoga on the patio.
After a flow that also felt like one of the best I’d had in many months, we traipsed back up the hill to our camp, where Jacob had fresh coffee with raw milk waiting for us. Then it was time to dive back into Fire Exit before our afternoon’s excursion.
Morgan Talty’s debut novel follows the story of Charles, a white man who was raised by his white mother and native stepfather on the Penobscot Reservation in Maine, and who is now grappling with the relationship he wants to have to a daughter who doesn’t know he exists. It is a story of family and legacy; blood and all of its complications, both legal and medical. Talty’s style is direct with poetic undertones, though that doesn’t mean the truth isn’t obscured. This is a novel largely about secrets and how truth(s) are a way of claiming or revoking power. It is also (and I was surprised by this) an incredibly tender story about caring for a parent at the end of their life.
To read Fire Exit in Page Break style and in the beautiful setting of the Catskills without a doubt elevated the prose and deepened my relationship to the story — one I frankly don’t think I would have picked out for myself, but which I’m so glad to have read.
And what better setting to read than by the side of an upstate lake, after taking a long leisurely dip in the cold water?
Refreshed by the lake, and now deep into the novel, our group had become forged beyond what I had expected.
I’m fascinated by the way groups develop energies, formed from the unique combination of characters but also setting and dare I say even plot!? This felt like a perfect bookend to my summer. In May, I played an intense game of Survivor over two days with a group of almost entirely strangers in a house by a lake north of Seattle. The last night, we had transformed from strangers into something cohesive, something forged.
The same can be said of Saturday night at Page Break. After reading aloud to each other for hours, sharing two outrageous meals by Eric, swimming and hiking and doing yoga and playing with dogs… we were something more than our component parts. Mikey notices the unifying effect of the experience as well. “By the time we have our first dinner, which is only a few hours after the reading begins, everyone feels bonded.”
Saturday night, after Jacob led us in a blind intuitive drawing exercise with Sennelier crayons on the canvas tablecloth, Eric and Mikey dialed it up a notch. That second dinner featured a five-course tasting menu, complete with wine pairing selected by Eric Fleming at Gay Wine Club. Yet again, Eric (See) prepared every single dish over the fire, but this time each of us were served a fully plated meal. The presentation was better than some restaurants in the city! In the spirit of the indigenous themes of the novel, Eric foraged hyssop leaves as a garnish for the lava cake, an unexpected but delightful standout. The leaves have an anise flavor that perfectly complemented the rich cocoa and coffee of the dessert.
Sunday
After our night of incredible food and revelry around the fire, we all woke Sunday morning and gathered to finish Fire Exit. We breezed through the last sixty pages of the book, which had us on the edge of our seats as we listened to the voices we’d now come to know so well tell each other how this story ends.
And then, as if that wasn’t enough, Mikey capped off our weekend with every reader’s favorite treat — a live conversation with the author. Morgan Talty joined us by video call for an hour to talk about the book, his writing process (this was his 6th draft!), and even to show us the taped-together papers that he’d used to map out the characters and plot points of the novel.
A natural-born storyteller, Morgan could hardly help himself but to answer each of our questions with a perfectly-delivered story. An absolute riot of a guy!
Page Break is wholly unique (as far as I’m aware), but this newsletter is largely about tracking the literary scene, so I had to ask, what does Page Break’s existence and popularity within year one mean within our present literary moment?
“I’ve learned that people’s favorite part is reading aloud. Having the opportunity to hear their own voice and put their own spin on how they read is something that people are maybe nervous about at first, but grow to love.”
When I asked Mikey this question, his response was telling. “I was intimidated by the literary community when I decided to launch this because particularly in New York […] the literary world has this reputation of being very insular.”
I get it. I have a whole essay on this that maybe one day I’ll release from the vaults. Yes, there is insularity, there is gatekeeping, but like the music or art or food scene, if you’re intrigued, chances are you’re already basically ‘in.’ Admittance to a scene is largely by self-selection.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how easy it’s been to immerse myself in the literary world,” Mikey said. “It’s not so insular. You just have to show up and go to events and talk to people.”
I couldn’t agree more. Literature is in a spectacular moment right now, where more people are reading and more readers are excited about engaging with texts in a social setting. Whether that’s a launch or reading in New York or LA, a retreat like Page Break, or even a traditional book club, storytelling is finally becoming communal again.
Mikey sees that as well. “I’ve learned that people’s favorite part is reading aloud. Having the opportunity to hear their own voice and put their own spin on how they read is something that people are maybe nervous about at first, but grow to love.”
For a series still in its first year, Page Break feels so fully realized. The next event Mikey will host is Day Break, another first. This will be a one-day retreat at Farm One in Brooklyn, reading Clara Drummond’s novella Role Play. Registration is already full for that one, but subscribe to Page Break on Instagram or TikTok to be the first to hear about future events. I can tell you now, horror fans are going to want to pay close attention to what Mikey has planned for October!
So, would you attend a Page Break? Have you read Fire Exit? Do you need a camping getaway? Let me know in the comments, and hey, read something aloud this week.
xoxo Scremes
September 9 – 22
TONIGHT! Monday, September 9: The 55th Season Premier of KGB’s Monday Night Poetry (one of my favorite events in New York!) feat. Andrea Cohen, Matthew Lippman, Cintia Santana, and Spencer Williams. | 7 pm at KGB Bar, NY. Free, two drink minimum.
Tuesday, September 10: 12 Questions to Structure Your Novel with Anna Dorn. | 7 pm ET on Zoom. Free. Register here.
Thursday, September 12: Launch and signing of Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing by Elizabeth Block, in conversation with Rubi Aguilar. | 6:30 at SALON (224 Roebling St., BK). Free.
Friday, September 13: LA Launch of Big Fan by Alexandra Romanoff, in conversation with Sophia Rivka Rossi. | 4 pm at Botanica (1620 Silver Lake Blvd, LA). $25.
Monday, September 16: NYC Launch of Big Fan by Alexandra Romanoff, in conversation with Juliet Litman. | 7 pm at The Ripped Bodice (218 5th Ave., BK). $17+.
Tuesday, September 17: “The Thing Is…” hosted by Alex Arthur, feat. Matt Starr, Jon Rudnitsky, Chris Murphy, Delaney Rowe, Peter Vack, Madeline Cash, Ivy Wolk, and Ruby McCollister. | 7 pm at Jean’s (415 Lafayette, NY). RSVP.
Wednesday, September 18: The Wednesday Night Monthly Open Mic. | 7 pm at The Red Room at KGB. DM @kgbmondaynight to sign up to read.
ALSO: Open Submission Call open now until December 1 for the final issue of Let’s Stab Caesar: The Sacred Edition. Submit!
just stumbled across this and loved the concept - esp the food stuff! i just hosted a book club for rejection by Tony tulathimutte and for our final session i made a dinner with dishes from his Grub Street profile. it was so much fun
This sounds so lovely, never would have thought about how reading out loud can connect you to people! Can wait to share with my NYC friends. There's an international femme version of something similar called Book Trips, itineraries built around a book set in the country of the trip with food and a discussion in case others are interested https://www.instagram.com/bookedtrips?igsh=MXc2MnBzOW8ydGl4MQ==