DEBUT SPOTLIGHT: Michele Herman

I will never forget my first trip to New York City. Reeling from grief, and ready to be anywhere but home, I booked a flight with my sister, our mom, and our very young (at the time) daughters to experience Christmastime in the city. New York during the holidays is a beautiful sight to behold, and while our trip was much too short to explore the entire city, our sojourn to Greenwich Village remains one of my favorite aspects of that trip. I was left wanting more time in this eclectic haven for artists and writers, replete with historical significance. In Michele Herman’s debut novel, SAVE THE VILLAGE, readers will discover an intimate love letter to the Village, written by a local author and award-winning columnist who has called the neighborhood home for many years.

THE FULL SYNOPSIS

Life hasn’t turned out quite the way Becca Cammeyer of Greenwich Village—once voted most likely to land on Broadway or in jail for a good cause—had planned. Her only child has moved to another continent, she’s still living in a fifth-floor walkup with her aging dog, still single, still nearly broke, still not on speaking terms with her best friend or her mother, and still hearing the ghost of her long-dead father whispering in her ear.

But she’s a semi-famous tour guide, and on a perfect October evening in 2006, Becca almost believes all is well with her world as she helps a group of South Carolinian tourists fall in love with her beloved Village. The tour concludes, and Becca sends the women on their way, unaware that her world is about to be upended. 

In the aftermath of a senseless tragedy in Washington Square, Becca must come to terms with her own paralysis, her survivor’s guilt, and the messiness of her life. She embarks on wildly improbable reconciliations and new relationships. At once a love story about Greenwich Village and a reflection on a changing world, Save the Village reveals how when a community comes together, everyone wins.

Michele Herman has created a protagonist worthy of Grace Paley, and rendered her world with such intimacy you may think that you, too, once inhabited it. Save The Village is a paean to the energy and idiosyncrasies of New York City, and to those, who, against all odds, have staked their claim there. 

—Sue Halpern, staff writer, The New Yorker

The Interview

Paulette: Hi Michele, thanks so much for joining me! Can you tell us about Save the Village and the inspiration behind the story?

Michele: In 1985 my boyfriend (now husband) and I, both finishing our graduate studies up at Columbia University, began looking for an apartment together on the Upper West Side. We saw dozens of places, all either miserable or unaffordable. One day a realtor called to ask if we would consider the Village, because she had a nice little place down on Jane Street. We would, we said, and arranged to meet her there. The apartment was near the Hudson on what was then the raggedy post-industrial edge of the Village, but we both thought the area was beautiful and we marveled at the chance to live in the Village.

We threw ourselves into Greenwich Village politics and preservation and history. We stuffed envelopes, went to Landmarks hearings, spent an entire Saturday cleaning up a mile-long strip of garbage along the Hudson River’s edge. In 1987 I wrote a letter to Pete Seeger that was apparently persuasive because he agreed to do a benefit concert for a local anti-overdevelopment organization we had joined called Save the Village, in honor of an earlier group with the same name. 

We made sturdy, rich, arts-filled lives for ourselves in the Village. Our kids grew up in the Village. I write columns about the Village. I’m secretary of my coop in the Village. I know the Village. I love Villagers. I feel I became my adult self in the Village. The novel is my way of saying thank you.

Paulette: That’s wonderful, Michele! We are kindred spirits. I am passionate about historical preservation and restoration with minimal gentrification. While my involvement was on a much smaller scale, I owned a business in my hometown’s industrial/commercial/residential Main Street district and attended weekly community meetings where I met others who were passionate about historical stewardship. It’s a period in my life I will always look upon with fond memories. I hope to be involved with other such projects in the future. It’s great work and brings a unique sense of fulfillment and yes…lots of creative inspiration!

Speaking of inspiration, who are some of the authors that have influenced or inspired you?

Michele: Some people go for tales and myths that are all about propulsion through a plot. Being a detail-oriented type, I’ve always liked a good sentence. The oft-cited “‘Shut up,’ he explained” (Ring Lardner). “LC S N XTC” (William Steig, from the great C D B!). “The sea was off somewhere, doing nothing” (Elizabeth Bishop). “He went on talking as he ate but he was quieter now and more dignified, using words like ‘obviously’ and ‘furthermore’ instead of ‘fart’ and ‘belly button’” (Richard Yates). “I was breathless with self-respect” (Grace Paley). “That’s your little dish of lava” (Paley). “Hello, my life, I said” (Paley). 

Yes, when I got to Grace Paley, gongs sounded inside me. This didn’t always happen with Paley and it didn’t happen the first time I read her, because the phrase “land of the slant-eyed cunt” on the first page of “The Long Distance Runner,” the story that introduced me to her in grad school, turned me off—so provocative it seemed, and I shy away from provocateurs. But then I read “Faith in a Tree” and was a goner. By then we had moved to the Village, where Faith sat in the tree in Washington Square. It’s a straight line from that tree to my novel Save the Village.

Paulette: I agree—a good sentence can have me completely intrigued. It’s an art form. When an author uses a sentence for emotional impact, it can be powerful, no matter the genre. One of my favorite examples comes from YA author Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince: “In Faerie, there are no fish sticks, no ketchup, no television.” Those are the only words on the page, and yet they tell you everything you need to know about the main character’s state-of-mind and how much her circumstances have changed. There’s beauty and comfort in the mundane, and nothing about her new situation is mundane. Loss is a theme that’s conveyed especially well in that book.

What are some of your favorite themes to explore in your own work?

Michele: This may be one of those questions better left to readers and critics, but I’d say—reading what emerges from me—that I care a whole lot about place and home and community, that I find myself drawn to stories of complicated friendship, that I like exploring the past to learn how things came to be the way they are, that I like to traffic in the intersection of the personal and the societal.

Paulette: How wonderful. Complexity is a huge draw for me—all the ways in which people interact with one another and build their lives. The choices they make, for good or for ill.

Even though Save the Village is your debut novel, you have a long history as an award-winning published author and writing instructor. What has been the most surprising or unexpected moment in your writing career?

Michele: I have an actual moment! The morning of June 1, 2015. This was the first day of my month-long poetry-writing marathon with Tupelo Press. In what I usually describe as a moment of madness a few days earlier, I had applied to Tupelo’s 30/30 project, which stands for 30 poems in 30 days, each one posted in public on the Tupelo website. I was not a poet. I had been actively encouraged to stick to prose. I figured they wouldn’t accept me, or they’d accept me for a month in the far future. Instead, they said: you’re on for June. I felt sick to my stomach. 

But I’m a good student – someone tells me to do something, I do it. And I know that often the things that make me feel like puking, like pregnancy, are things worth doing. 

That month, all the usual ramparts in my head fell away. Planet Earth was a newly fascinating place to live. I woke up each morning thinking: what images will alight in my open palms today? Everything was game to become a subject for a poem: our Russian piano tuner, a muggy morning, picking up a prescription at CVS. Many of the poems I wrote that month made it into my first chapbook, Victory Boulevard (Finishing Line Press, 2018). (My second, Just Another Jack: The Private Lives of Nursery Rhymes, is due out this month.) A few months after the 30/30 I signed up for an invitation-only daily writing practice called The Grind, which assigns writers to a group of 10 or so participants, and you all email each other a piece of writing every day for a month – no feedback, just the small daily kick in the pants. Completely changed my life.

Paulette: That’s such a great story! It’s amazing how when someone tells you that you can in fact do the thing you never thought you could—like poetry—all the windows fly open on your creativity, even when it’s challenging. I had the same experience when I submitted to RevPit and got short-listed for the manuscript that eventually became my debut. It was terrifying and exhilarating, all at the same time.

So much of “success” in writing comes down to being willing to take those chances—to put yourself out there. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Michele: First, if you sit down to write and feel despair at how paltry or flat or cringe-worthy the results are, this is a fixable situation, and does not indicate a lack of talent. If you’re a living, feeling human, you have material. What you need is to learn some craft. Find your way to a high-quality writing class like the ones at The Writers Studio, where I studied and now teach, or read some thoughtful books on the subject. I recommend Robert Olen Butler’s From Where You Dream. 

Paulette: That is some marvelous advice. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me, Michele! It was very inspirational. Best wishes on your debut, and I look forward to seeing what comes from your pen in the future!

You can purchase Save the Village now from Regal House, Bookshop, or Amazon, or request it from your favorite local bookseller.

Michele Herman is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Just Another Jack: The Private Lives of Nursery Rhymes (2022) and Victory Boulevard (2018). Her stories, essays and poems have appeared widely in The New York Times, The Sun, Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, Lilith and other publications. She is a multiple Pushcart nominee and recipient of several writing awards, including the 2018 Prize for Best Column from the New York Press Association, and two Willis Barnstone Translation Prizes. She is a devoted longtime teacher of fiction, poetry and memoir at The Writers Studio; a developmental editor, and longtime columnist who has written scores of pieces about Greenwich Village life for The Villager and more recently for the new website The Village Sun. She has long been active in neighborhood preservation efforts. Michele and her husband live in Greenwich Village, where they raised their two sons. You can connect with Michele via her website, Facebook, and Twitter