Clear Cut Press invites book lovers to a free reading Friday at the Voodoo Room,1102 Marine Drive.

Brooklyn author Jennifer Fink will read from her debut novel, “Burn,” at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13.

“Burn,” recently published by Suspect Thoughts Press of San Francisco, tells the story of Sylvie Edelman, a middle-aged American communist living in a collective workers’ “colony” in suburban Long Island in the summer of 1953. Of the book’s genesis, Fink writes:

Brooklyn, N.Y. author Jennifer Fink”My relatives were part of the socialist colony movement … I only fully understood what the colony movement was and how it was destroyed when I became an adult, and became interested in utopic communities, socialism, and radical Jewish history.

“I grew up charmed and alarmed by the half-told stories of the foibles of the colony … At the height of the labor movement in the 1930s, there were several dozen of these colonies in Westchester, New Jersey, and Long Island. They were founded as summer retreats for factory workers, created to provide a respite from the city and promote solidarity between workers; they evolved into utopic communities that aimed to promote solidarity and an alternative social and economic structure – somewhat like a kibbutz – to working class Jewish people. Then, in the 50s, the twin demons of McCarthyism and assimilation more or less eradicated them.

“I was struck by the absurdity and nobility of the colonists’ enterprise; these dirt-poor immigrant Jews had such chutzpah, creating a socialist utopia in America! They were such small-time, powerless working class folks, most with little education or capital, and yet their ideals and dreams were so enormous. And even though they were just a bunch of hippies, essentially, the U.S. government saw fit to silence them. I always wanted to write about them, somehow; once Sylvia appeared on the page, I began to find a voice and a path through this complex history.”

Fink will be introduced by Clear Cut Press editor Matthew Stadler. Copies of “Burn,” as well as all Clear Cut Press titles, will be available for sale. Snacks and drinks will be available at the bar.