A darkly humorous and poignant memoir, though I know that is not at all how Nick Flynn would describe it himself. Flynn has a voice all his own that elevates this honest, somewhat tragic story with levity and blunt truth. The guy has style, it's of the frayed and utilitarian variety, but it is uniquely his and it makes for a golly-gosh-darn-good read (again not how Flynn would put it).

This is not a memoir with a purpose beyond telling the story, beyond exploring one's truth as they have seen it, experienced it, learned it to be. It is probably an exploration of part of Flynn's life, in the context of his father, in order to better understand it and perhaps accept it for what it was/is. Do I think any given reader could take something of value from this memoir? Absolutely. Do I think it will be the same for every reader? Undoubtedly, no. There is depth, and humanity, and complexity within these pages, but it's not fully explored (or should I say explained?) - the relationships and events are laid out, make of it what you will.

This is a memoir that touches on homelessness, fatherlessness, pointlessness, and worthlessness, don't forget alcoholism, depression, and self-medicating - or perhaps it should be said that it is the reality of some of these and the perception of all. It is not always pretty, but it never feels hopeless. The writing style felt disconnected to start, but quickly comes together with it's bite-sized piece chapters and a structure that, get this, was modeled after Moby Dick! That will actually make some sense by the time you finish the book - so, go on, get to it.

At the start, it seemed a little avant-garde, and I was not in the mood for it. But sticking with the unexpected narration style in present tense, the book opened up and drew me in and completely enveloped. Such a moving story.

I like the original title much better than the movie title, but I understand that they had to change it so as not to offend people. This was a post modern masterpiece. I highly recommend it, but prepare to be sad at times. Also prepare to be heartened by the fact that the author came out of such a hard background to be the successful author that he is.

Un poco confusa de leer al inicio pero una vez que te entregas a su ritmo es desgarradora y cruda y hermosa a la vez

I liked the message and the overall theme, but it dragged on a bit. I think that was intentional though based on the storyline.

Published in 2004, "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City," by Nick Flynn, is a memoir recounting the author's upbringing as the son of a single mother and an alcoholic father who he was completely estranged from, growing up, until his father became homeless sometime when Flynn was in his twenties, and the two finally met.

The majority of this book is about Flynn's father, Jonathan Flynn. I would say a solid seventy percent of this book is about Jonathan's life, and the other thirty percent is Nick Flynn describing how miserable his childhood was.

There is almost zero emotional insight in this novel. Unexplained details did not add up, leaving me baffled by the author's behavior and choices. Flynn emphasizes his extreme poverty as a child, and shows the reader flashes of his life with his mentally ill mother and brother in a grim, impoverished existence, and on the next page he's telling the reader he backpacked through Europe at age seventeen, attended a high-profile university, and later, he talks about traveling in Europe, even living in Paris with his girlfriend, in his twenties? How is this possible? I don't understand how Flynn made the jump between poverty, his own childhood addictions, motorcycle accidents, and crime, to suddenly being free to travel the globe as a teenager -- which takes a considerable amount of money and planning to do.

Also, there is no closure at the end of the book. The memoir just bluntly ends. If a reader is looking for some heartfelt takeaways from Flynn's journey through life, this memoir will not deliver.

This book was thoroughly not for me.

I had hoped to enjoy this a lot more, since I, too, had a chronically homeless alcoholic father. But a paper grocery bag is capable of more self-reflection than this memoir is.

Negative stars. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Three stars because I recognize that there's a fan base for this book, and other readers have seemed to enjoy Flynn's dude-bro depiction of his F-up-father-as-spectacle. This memoir just wasn't for me.

Picked this book up because of the laughs its title caused when I spotted it on an ultra-conservative roommate's desk. Coming from a long-standing tradition of mentally ill alcoholics, there was much I could relate to and even more that I could imagine happening among my own folks. Another Bullshit Night is one of the better memoirs I've read recently, and I'd be interested in checking out some of Flynn's poetry when I get a chance.

Nick Flynn has written a powerful memoir in prose and poetry, poetical prose. His words reached my heart and moved me, both with his exquisite mastery of craft and his exposure of self, writing to tell his story and ours.

He tells us of his coping, as a boy and then a man, with a childhood where love and care of some sort existed, and yet basic emotional needs were unmet, needs of which a child cannot understand, but with lack registering in every fiber. He tells us about some of his escapades, his grit, his ingenuity, his street smarts, his chances, his breaks, his hard work, his isolation, although he would likely disagree with those labels. He tells us of his heart, wounded and generous, stoic and anesthetized with drugs and alcohol. He tells us of his father, a proud, narcissistic alcoholic on a long self-destructive descent with bursts of creative energy. He shows us his own creativity, which in his life miraculously (my description) turned the corner into generativity.

When everything has proven tenuous one can either move toward permanence or move toward impermanence. The boat's sublimely impermanent. Some mornings the fog's so thick that I exist only in a tight glove of clearing, beyond which is all foghorn and unknown.

This story is beautiful not only because of its intimacy with one man's powerful story of his own survival and relationship with his descending father, but because of his generosity with others, a generosity often couched with fear, anger, sorrow, and detachment, but profound, essentially offering a place at the table for each human. That it's told with poetic crystallization is also a gift.

Originally, I read this book in 2008, but it was well worth reading again. This is not your ordinary memoir!

Now here goes a book that is creatively non-fiction...

If you want to read a book that breaks all the rules, while hearing the survival story of a boy who is abandoned by his mother and homeless father, read this book. No chronology here--in fact the writer abandons form as you may know it--but the writing doesn't need it. Hardcore and straight-forward (as if you can't tell from the title). Not your average book, and this is what makes it a good contemporary read.

Nick Flynn does a great job at piecing together this personal narrative with a ton of (semi) historical and personal moving parts. Over all though, I felt like this entire book is misery for tourists. People in the world that have never had to deal with substance abuse and/or violence in their family may be enthralled by the drama displayed here. But I think if you've lived through any of this, it just feels somewhat exploitative of horrible circumstances that have no business being placed on a pedestal.
If I had to choose, I'd rather read a book that deals more with facts and data in regards to these issues than this brash book.

The verdict: Strong 3-3.5 stars.

I saw the movie first (Being Flynn) before even knowing it was based on a book. The movie was fair, yet I'm glad that the book is very different. Whereas the movie focuses nearly entirely on Nick's relationship with his father once dad shows up at the homeless shelter, that is only a small part of the book. In that sense, the structure of the book is akin to Moby-Dick. "In Moby-Dick, the eponymous whale doesn't appear until the last fifty pages. The story of the whale appears earlier, but the actual whale only breaks the surface for a moment at ht end, just long enough to pull Ahab under. The whole book is about the whale that isn't there" (345). As the quotation marks indicate, that isn't my clever interpretation; it's the author's own in his final "Q+A" section at the end.

The chapters are very short and the writing borders on poetic, which makes sense since Nick did his graduate work in poetry (and has published poetry). All in all it's an interesting story that is well told.

I really wanted to say more good things about it since I "liked" and almost "really liked it," but right now I just can't find the words. Instead, I'll jump to a few things that bothered me, even if only ever-so-slightly. I actually think this complaint is going to sound stupid, but here goes. This is a memoir, right? (Yes.) While Nick does talk about his childhood to adulthood, every single aspect of every moment relates to his father. Yes, I get it, his dad is his absent white whale and his biggest fear seems to be that "[he/Nick] would become him, the line between [them] would blur" (11). In that sense, this becomes almost more a biography of his dad than an autobiography. And all that's still fine--I don't care what genre the book falls into--and Nick even basically acknowledges as much at the end. And of course in a memoir the author's going to have to be selective with what he includes. And the fact that Nick arranged those selections around the theme of the absent/drunken/homeless father really works well! Still, there are some things that he leaves out that just irked me, again, ever-so-slighlty. For example, how did he actually get to be where he is? From his own description, he was a complete waste as a teenager (petty crimes and stoned all the time), so how did he get into Amherst? (He claims that not only did he not remember applying, but that he was shocked to be in the top 10% of his class.) Maybe I'm naive about the cost of flying to and living in (even if out of a backpack) Europe, but how does he have the money to suddenly up and leave? Just like deciding to go back to college and then to get a graduate degree in poetry is mentioned in one throw-away line, we get "After considerable struggle I managed to get the boat on land, then I flew to Amsterdam to meet Emily, who'd been traveling Europe for a couple months already" (180). Hell, if I ever write a memoir, my European travels will be big events in my life, as will the decision and work to earn advanced degrees.

But this isn't my memoir--and I think that is exactly where the problem lies. I can't relate to being able to (ie: having the courage to) drop everything and fly to Europe on a whim. I can't relate to suddenly publishing a book. Maybe it's jealousy--I chose to do things the "right" way: good grades, good college, advanced degree, good job, good pension--and I haven't accomplished my ultimate dream of publishing a novel. Nick Flynn portrays himself as nothing but a waste, yet here is his novel. Of course, I haven't devoted the time (not that I have the skill) to actually being disciplined enough to sit down and write the great American novel. I'm not sure that his adding a bunch of chapters about his discipline and tenacity during the writing process would make the book any better, for it would almost certainly make it worse. Maybe then I wouldn't be ever-so-slightly bothered/jealous, though.


A Favorite Quotation: "There are many ways to drown, only the most obvious wave their arms when they're going under" (327).