Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
Description
Description
"Sometimes I'd see my father, walking past my building on his way to another nowhere. I could have given him a key, offered a piece of my floor. But if I let him inside the line between us would blur, my own slow-motion car wreck would speed up." Nick Flynn met his father for the third time when he was twenty-seven years old, working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Nick, his own life precariously unsettled, was living alternately in a ramshackle boat and in a warehouse that was once a strip joint. In bold, dazzling prose, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (a phrase Flynn senior uses to describe his life on the streets) tells the story of two lives and the trajectory that led Nick and his father into that homeless shelter, onto those streets, and finally to each other.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
Flynn has written a potent, distinctive autobiography.... Flynn's talents are considerable--he has a compelling voice and wry sense of humor, especially about himself.--Vendela Vida "New York Times Book Review"
The prose swirls in graceful arcs that frequently rise to the level of poetry, leavened by mordant humor.... It's a powerful tale, stylishly told.--Michael Mewshaw "Washington Post"
In a perverse act of divine intervention, a life worth writing about was bestowed on a man actually able to write--in startling, beautiful, unsentimental prose.... It is crammed with beauty and wisdom, and everyone will love it.--Devin Friedman "GQ"
A remarkable feat: a clear-eyed, inventive, and astonishingly honest guided tour of hell.--Elissa Schappel "Vanity Fair"
Flynn's authentic voice... holds us rapt, keeping both the tragic and the redemptive possibilities open.--Darren Reidy "Village Voice"
[Flynn's] story is eerie testimony to the potent influence of an absent parent. But Nick, a poet, is too subtle a writer to say so outright, and instead lets us draw our own conclusions with a delicate, poetic logic.--Kate Bolick "Boston Globe"
Unlike the pity parties that too many memoirs have become, Night has no maudlin gestures, no 'inspirational' tones, no hysterics; it stares down emptiness with clear, dry eyes.--Troy Patterson "Entertainment Weekly"
Told with energy, critical reflection and sensitivity, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is less a memoir than a study of one of America's darker conundrums: homelessness.--Thomas Curwen "Los Angeles Times Book Review"
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company
Pub date:
2005-09-17
Length:
376 pages
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