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Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

3.76 of 5 stars 3.76 · rating details · 5,122 ratings · 702 reviews

"A stunningly beautiful new memoir . . . a near-perfect work of literature." —Stephen Elliot, San Francisco Chronicle

Nick Flynn met his father when he was working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger father, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Another Bullshit...more

Paperback, 347 pages

Published September 12th 2005 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published 2004)

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Aug 31, 2011 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: addiction, bio-and-memoirs, boston, homelessness, mental-illness, library-books

The bold and colorful title and cover caught my eye at the library. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read another depressing memoir about homelessness, but since it took place in Boston, a city I’m quite familiar with, I decided to give it a go. There were some darkly humorous moments, as I’d expected from the title. Overall, this was a poignant, honest, and intense story about Nick Flynn’s relationship with his absent, alcoholic, and delusional father.

I learned after I started reading the book that N...more

28 likes · like · see review

Mar 16, 2008 Laurel rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: tried-to-but

another postmodern turd in craptown

24 likes · like · see review

Sep 26, 2007 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: investment bankers/supermodels

I don't actually think this book is bad at all, but I put it in this section because I couldn't get through it, despite really, really wanting to. In my opinion, this book has the most brilliant title in recent memory, and the cover art is simply gorgeous. I so badly wanted to like it, at least enough to get through it, so I could at least carry it around with me and enjoy its black, green, and yellow loveliness!

Sadly, I could not. This probably has less to do with the book itself, which I'm sur...more

14 likes · like · see review

Aug 20, 2007 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: memoir snobs, bostonites

Shelves: contemporarystuff

I love this book. It's a dark, beautifully-written look at a guy working at Boston's Pine Street Inn whose dad happens to frequent the shelter.

For all the crappy memoirists out there, I'm glad we have writers like Flynn who remind us that the genre doesn't necessarily have to be a haven for terrible writing that hides behind real-life experience. This guy could have practically coasted on his hard-luck life story, but instead he knuckled down and produced a kick-ass book.

9 likes · like · see review

May 10, 2007 cathy rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who loves memoir so good it could be fiction.

Shelves: non-fiction-read

The credit for this book’s colorful title goes to Nick Flynn’s dad, the main protagonist in his memoir of coming to know himself through a chance reunion with his father. The story initially focuses on the early parallels between young Flynn and his estranged, alcoholic father. The author then brings us to a Boston homeless shelter where he held a minimum-wage job for 5 years after living alone on a houseboat near Boston Harbor. Father and son’s lives fatefully intersect in the shelter when his...more

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Aug 24, 2007 Ben rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people in Boston

So this book is kind of like Joseph Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel except that 1) it is relatively contemporary; 2) it is about Boston; and 3) it is autobiographical. Which is to say that, on the outside, it is nothing like Up in the Old Hotel. Except that it is what I call a "mood" book that gets you in the Boston "mood" - like, more a tableau than a novel. Yeah, you like that I wrote "tableau" didn't you? I was trying to fit the term "geist" in but I am too lazy to think up a sentence for it,...more

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Dec 19, 2008 Debbie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I spent a lot of time while reading this wondering who I know that will be resigned to a fate similar to that of the father in these memoirs. Who will wind up past the prime of their life having talked for years of what they will accomplish and have really accomplished nothing? I can unfortunately name a decent sized handful of people who run this risk at this point in their lives. Closer to thirty than to twenty, and wasting months of their lives on drinking binges, babbling about their potenti...more I spent a lot of time while reading this wondering who I know that will be resigned to a fate similar to that of the father in these memoirs. Who will wind up past the prime of their life having talked for years of what they will accomplish and have really accomplished nothing? I can unfortunately name a decent sized handful of people who run this risk at this point in their lives. Closer to thirty than to twenty, and wasting months of their lives on drinking binges, babbling about their potential, but not wanting to do anything besides their current lifestyle. Of course, they hide their virtual uselessness by making (not especially good) music. And I'm a big fan of music, and realize that in order to make anything good you will probably make a lot of stuff that isn't. However, to pin all your hopes for your future on making it big in music just isn't that realistic. Even less so now that the music business has been in recession for longer than the rest of the nation can boast. I wish there were anything to be said about it that wouldn't be taken as annoying nagging, but these people will run the course of their lives however they see fit, regardless of what is good for them or what they're capable of. It's relatively foreign to me, having been raised to believe that anything you get in life should be something you have earned, and that if you didn't earn it, you probably don't deserve it. I believe life is all about working hard. Not that I've been doing much of it myself lately, but being in this position has only made me realize just how much it's not the life for me. My self worth is at an all-time low, and with where I stand on such things it damn well should be. Luckily, I will be starting to go full-time to school in about a month, and that should be repairing to my self image and mindset. Anyway, it's funny that the setting for these memoirs is Massachusetts, because it only drove the point home for me about the failings of the lifestyle, having grown up on the Cape. I know there are people everywhere that wind up on the streets, finally running out of people to use and possessions to hock. But I keep seeing people from back home confining themselves to the slacker, constantly partying social life. I feel that Cape Cod is a destructive place to live, and I'm beginning to wonder if there's something about the whole state. Or maybe even the coastal areas of New England. I doubt that is in fact the case, but wouldn't it be odd if somehow the places that birthed out nation are beginning to be left behind in disgust? Anyway, back to the matter of the book, it was definitely interesting, sometimes almost painful, and altogether hard for me to put down. (less)

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Dec 18, 2008 Ashley rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was interesting to me because the author is a caseworker working with homeless folks which is what I used to do. I found it unfortunate that he seems characterize all homeless folks as either drunks or psychotic (or both) when in reality people are homeless for many reasons- domestic violence, disability, illness or injury, lack of affordable housing, lack of transitional support for people leaving institutions, hospitalization or prison, youth kicked out of the house for being queer,...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 08, 2011 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

At first I didn't like this book, but as it went on, it got better/more engaging, which I think says a lot about its overall quality. For the first couple hundred pages I was annoyed by the tone. The humor was a bit off. Things that were intrinsically hilarious (though horrifying) were given a bit of humor but then too quickly turned around by pathos, even melodrama. Also, Flynn creates long, long passages of abstracted language, which isn't my thing, and there are enough comma splices here to m...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 09, 2013 Sarah Funke added it

Really compelling examination of family. Read it in a sitting. Recommend.

The title is the worst part. The Lear references were heavy handed, I would have preferred no Lear references in the book but then maybe a title from Lear. I am biased in terms of interest as my high school was involved with the Pine St. Inn.

I thought Flynn did a lot of what Maclean did with A River Runs Through It, in terms of illustrating what we can or can't do to help family, and what we can avoid and what we must inh...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 18, 2013 Christy Auston rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm not sure why people are considering this a "post-modern" book. It is not a book that plays games with language or with the reader. This book is a very felt, lyrical act of imagination on the part of the writer to try to understand his parents' alcoholism and mental illness. He calls himself his father's "uncredited, noncompliant ghostwriter," and I think he means that fully sincerely. Much of the book is not about Nick Flynn at all (even though this book is subtitled, "a memoir,"), but is an...more

2 likes · like · see review

Nov 01, 2007 Philitsa rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought this book would affect me more than it did. The back of the book has a synopsis and a list of quotes from reviews, which is what made me think I'd enjoy this book more. One review caught my eye, from GQ magazine. It says, "...a life worth writing about was bestowed upon a man actually able to write..."

Firstly, everyone has a life worth writing about. There's poetry and beauty and a story to tell about everyone's life; a good writer will make the most mundane circumstance seem electric...more

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Apr 18, 2008 Susie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-commented

This book feels like a pre-cursor to "A Million Little Pieces" in that the writing style feels hasty, stream-of-conscious at times, and the story is catastrophic, it's difficult to believe. But I preferred this to AMLP. And it was written in 2004 (compared to James Frey's 2003 work) so nevermind that.

At times the writing style feels incoherent and unedited -- the parts that were written as theatric scripts were particularly annoying to read. The author writes with total detachment which I found...more

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Nov 29, 2008 Kevin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction-or-memoir

It's as good as everyone says it is. I like his ability to write pretty straight-forward passages and then do some weird poetic tangents.

2 likes · like · see review

May 17, 2007 Abe Brennan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Nick Flynn’s pathos-packed memoir is part coming-of-age story and part counter-culture-chronicle, part mental-illness menagerie and part generational-reconciliation-project. His poetic past serves him well, manifesting in image shards and lingual leaps that strike chords that vibrate in a reader long after she puts down the book. Like life, there is no tidy resolution to this story, no miraculous recovery for his addled dad—as the narrator ages and matures, he’s just able to manage better and ta...more

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Nov 28, 2011 Särah Nour rated it 2 of 5 stars

Memoirs make up a tricky genre; one that is very much hit-or-miss, as the writer must tell their personal stories while making it accessible to an audience of strangers. Nick Flynn may have succeeded as a poet, with collections such as Some Ether and Blind Huber, but poetic language doesn’t cut it in the memoir department. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is vividly written yet unmemorable; a story of triumph over tragedy that does not triumph as a creative work of nonfiction.

Part of the memo...more Memoirs make up a tricky genre; one that is very much hit-or-miss, as the writer must tell their personal stories while making it accessible to an audience of strangers. Nick Flynn may have succeeded as a poet, with collections such as Some Ether and Blind Huber, but poetic language doesn’t cut it in the memoir department. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is vividly written yet unmemorable; a story of triumph over tragedy that does not triumph as a creative work of nonfiction.

Part of the memoir chronicles Flynn’s life from his upbringing by a single mother to his drug-addled teenage years to his adulthood as a social worker, working at the homeless shelter where he met his wayward alcoholic father, long homeless due to mental illness. The other plotline chronicles the story of his father as a creative yet aimless young man entering a marriage of convenience, abandoning his family and succumbing to illness and addiction. These plotlines intersect while alternating between past and present in a depiction of Flynn’s conflicting feelings towards his father, his own struggles with addiction, and the dispelling of his personal demons.

The memoir contains an episodic and meandering narrative, partly made up of small chapters that are merely meditations on Flynn’s life. These serve little to no purpose in the story and read more as journal entries than as part of a story. Since much of the book is made up of description and not dialogue, Flynn adds a creative touch to the few scenes that contain dialogue by writing those chapters as play scripts; a method which, while interesting in theory, falls flat in its attempt to be innovative.

One can easily discern from his writing that Flynn is more a poet than a novelist, in that his strengths lie more in providing imagery than in telling a coherent story. While the story in itself is ultimately forgettable, the vivid, gritty descriptions of the streets of Boston and its homeless population are more likely to make a lasting impression on readers. Flynn certainly wields the poet’s ability to take a snapshot of a moment in life and put it in writing; however, this does little to further plot development.

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City contains an intriguing premise that turns up short, lost in episodic vignettes that don’t contribute to the plotlines at hand. I recommend picking up one of Flynn’s poetry books rather than this one; there’s little to be had beyond the fun title. (less)

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Nov 15, 2011 Katie Campbell rated it 4 of 5 stars

I personally really enjoyed this book. Nick Flynn’s memoir about his relationship with his alcoholic father was so real to me. My father disappeared from my life due to alcohol when I was 12, and after 8 and a half years, he called me asking to meet up with me. Since I met up with him a few months ago, he has been occasionally calling me or texting me. It’s just like in the book how Nick’s father resurfaced through letters and stories. Nick’s father was described as a criminal and dead-beat man...more I personally really enjoyed this book. Nick Flynn’s memoir about his relationship with his alcoholic father was so real to me. My father disappeared from my life due to alcohol when I was 12, and after 8 and a half years, he called me asking to meet up with me. Since I met up with him a few months ago, he has been occasionally calling me or texting me. It’s just like in the book how Nick’s father resurfaced through letters and stories. Nick’s father was described as a criminal and dead-beat man who burned bridges left and right. My father was the same way. I think Flynn did a good job of characterization with his father; it could just be because I could relate, and I felt like I met him already. He structured the story by showing his father’s life and his life as well. He himself went down the path of alcohol and had a fear of ending up like his father. I really like when he said, “You can spend your entire life simply falling in that direction. It isn’t a station you reach, but just the general state of going down”. Suck City ends up being his father’s nickname for his hometown in Massachusetts. It plays a major setting role as it was the setting for many of Nick’s major events in his life; the events that his father was absent for. I really enjoyed when Flynn began working at the Pine Street Inn. It was one of the nation’s most active homeless shelters. This became another huge plot in the story as he described many people just like his father. Many homeless men would drift right on through the shelter night after night. Flynn described some of these men; he knew several of their names, their stories. He made some connections with some of them, something he could never make with his father. Personally, my father is the same way; he’s homeless. I don’t know how to help him, but I felt that Flynn working at a shelter really showed that he did care somewhat and it kind of makes me want to do the same. I liked Flynn’s style of writing, and I thought the story flowed well. I think the major reason that I loved this piece so much is because I find it so relatable. Reading stories that I can relate to teaches me a lot about writing, and style. It makes me think about different ways I can portray a story that is so similar to my life. So many of the sentences that Nick Flynn wrote spoke to me. I loved when he said, “If I went to the drowning man and the drowning man would pull me under. I couldn’t be his life raft.” I loved how he portrayed his alcoholism as drowning. Jonathan was drowning in alcohol, in his sorrows. And the metaphor of Jonathan being a life raft was strong; it was true. It makes me think of my father. I really enjoyed though throughout this whole piece that Nick Flynn never asked the reader to feel sorry for him. He just said this sad story, laid it all out there for his readers in a way that makes us feel for him without his begging, so to speak.(less)

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Jan 02, 2009 Merry rated it 4 of 5 stars

First heard about this book when it was highly recommended to me by lauded book blogger NonAnon aka Citizen Reader -- a reliable source of good reads and someone who doesn't pull any punches for bad ones. But I dragged it home from the library three or four times and dodged it. Why? I had trouble getting "into" it. The first paragraph just turned me off. Now I know...you just have to get into or get past that peculiar first page... stay with it and you will be snagged. Exquisite, painful, gorgeo...more

1 like · like · see review

Apr 03, 2013 Deb rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club-pick, memoir

This book was definitely something different! This memoir was tough reading at first. It jumped around in time, and it didn't hold my interest until about half-way through, so I nearly gave up on it. But I'm glad I persevered, and I may even try reading the other two books in this trilogy.

In short, Nick's father was never around much, having left the family when Nick was very young. Nick's life was pretty unstable, too. When a friend told Nick that he could get a job at a homeless shelter in Bo...more This book was definitely something different! This memoir was tough reading at first. It jumped around in time, and it didn't hold my interest until about half-way through, so I nearly gave up on it. But I'm glad I persevered, and I may even try reading the other two books in this trilogy.

In short, Nick's father was never around much, having left the family when Nick was very young. Nick's life was pretty unstable, too. When a friend told Nick that he could get a job at a homeless shelter in Boston, he did so, and ended up working there for several years, on and off. One day, Nick's father becomes one of the residents of the shelter.

The aspects of the narrative that I found most engaging were the details about working with the homeless, both in the shelter and on the streets. This is not a topic I've read much about, and it was very graphic and informative about the realities of dealing with people (mainly men) who have nowhere to go, no way to keep clean, not even a place to use a restroom, until they show up at the doors of the shelter at night. I am thankful that there a people who like Nick take on this work (even though, in his case, it was somewhat by default).

Sadly, Nick seemed to have inherited his father's addictive personality, and his inability to find stability in his life. It's a relief to see that eventually Nick was published and now teaches creative writing, but I guess I'll have to read the rest of the trilogy to find out what happened to his father.

"....I seen no end to being lost. You can spend your entire life simply falling in that direction. It isn't a station you reach but just the general state of going down. Once you make it back, if you make it back, you will stand before your long-lost friends but in some essential way they will no longer know you." p. 182

"The day my father walked through the doors I became transparent. I couldn't find a way to talk about him with my friends, with my co-workers. Some approached, side-ways, crablike, offered support, sympathy, but this was merely fuel for my shame." p. 219

"The shelter was meant to be a waystation, a halfway house, but halfway to where wasn't specified. The cot and the roof and the plate of food were only meant to tide one over. It was never meant to be a life raft. Even a life raft is only supposed to get you from the sinking ship back to land, you were never intended to live on the life raft, to drift years on end, in sight of land but never close enough." p. 327

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Mar 07, 2013 Theresa rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: world-view-shifted

I read this book because a good friend recommended it to me. I believe the recommendations came on the grounds that:
a. I love memoirs and
b. I love homeless people and
c. I love Boston
This book is is amazing for all of those reasons. I can see how someone might not like it...but for me this book was absolute brilliance. It reads like poetry (no wonder, since the writer is a poet), and it is painful and beautiful and so sad at the same time. If you have any experience with homeless people who live...more

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Mar 02, 2013 cowgirl sushi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction-thumbs-up

Nick Flynn often gets asked if he regretted the title of this memoir and his response was: " ." I completely agree with Nick. I absolutely love this title and think it contributes to the book being a national best seller, winning the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Memoir, and being named one of the top books of 2004 by the New York Public Library. It's the story of a young man and a highly dysfunctional father who finally get together when the father is living on the street and Nick is working in...more

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Aug 22, 2012 LA Carlson rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: mature readers

Shelves: historial-memoir

This book came onto my radar after I watched the movie adaptation entitled; Being Flynn. We all have those moments where we are watching or reading a story unfold and we are left wondering "is this real?" In a rare gift both the movie and the book are simply searing, emotionally stunning and real.
A cautionary note: if you're are in a fragile place you will find this an especially
difficult story to read.

Nick Flynn writes at time in poetry style of how his father, a smart and delusional man, cam...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars

review originally written in 2005

Another Bullshit Day In Suck City by Nick Flynn

With near perfect timeing I finished this today
so that I can start on the mountain of unread
books on tomorrows long flight to LA.
That said I'm sure we can all relate to the
title of this book even if we haven't been
through the nightmare of being homeless that the
phrase is used to describe.
The book is a memoir of Nicks life growing up
with an absent father and a screwed up mother
who eventually comitted suicide...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars

A powerful, absorbing, moving memoir, unlike any I've read before (and I've read a lot of autobiographies and memoirs -- it does remind me a bit of Peter Reich's "A Book of Dreams," also a son's story of his elusive, possibly mad father). Full of short, sharp vignettes and beautifully structured, the book tells of author Nick Flynn's creative, delusional, criminal, alcoholic father and of Nick's own struggles with addiction, abandonment, and loss. If it were a novel, the story would seem almost...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Andrew Harter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Father Finds Son Who Finds Himself

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn. W.W. Norton & Company Inc., New York, 2004.

Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is in a class of its own entirely. The book is a memoir that is based on author Nick Flynn’s lifelong avoidance of his father. A boy who was brought up despising the man he never knew. The whole book is divided into six unique parts as they serve as different phases in both character’s lives. As the story progresses,...more Father Finds Son Who Finds Himself

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn. W.W. Norton & Company Inc., New York, 2004.

Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is in a class of its own entirely. The book is a memoir that is based on author Nick Flynn’s lifelong avoidance of his father. A boy who was brought up despising the man he never knew. The whole book is divided into six unique parts as they serve as different phases in both character’s lives. As the story progresses, the chapters alternate between Nick Flynn growing up and his father Jonathan Flynn’s journey to stay alive after he has divorced his wife/Nick’s mother. This formatting for the chapter progression serves as a gateway for the reader to follow along each main character’s life and feel their raw emotions as they trudge along through their lives.
Nick Flynn’s style of writing for this novel is definitely one that is unconventional compared to the other contemporary novels that I have read, such as the Harry Potter series. Flynn is writing a novel, but with a poet’s mindset. I didn’t think it was possible to accomplish such a feat. Flynn writes “My father’s room is filled with boxes, inside the boxes are his masterpieces, his novels-in-progress…but open the boxes and you will find only more emptiness.” This example proves Flynn’s poetic style with his use of extensive metaphors. Flynn uses them to further describe the severity of his father’s condition in a way where the readers can reap the intense emotions flowing through Nick Flynn’s veins.
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is a special kind of novel. Each chapter is a creatively written tunnel to the next one. Flynn intertwines nonfiction so well with the incredible situations that he has gone through, that one might think he made his story up. In one scene Flynn writes “Known as the ‘Professor’, Keith knows my mother…he takes me out to lunch and offers me a job as his apprentice. High up in the Organization, he maintains the radios that keep in touch with the boats that aren’t going out for fish.” In this scene Flynn is joining the Mob. Not many people can say they’ve joined the mob and lived to tell about it. His joining the Mob also reflects his fickle character. He gets involved in every risky behavior possible in the book. This behavior is directly reflective of his father’s. Nick Flynn could have easily ended up like his father and become homeless as he is throughout the novel, but it was his passion of writing and all out stubbornness that kept him from becoming homeless.
The novel was extremely well written and was one of the first ones in a long while that I couldn’t put down. Flynn helps mold a situation as sensitive as one’s father being homeless into the utmost raw emotion and reality as he makes his way to find answers about his family while in doing so he answers all the questions that have ever been asked of him along the way.
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Nov 15, 2011 Janine added it

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004
I started reading this because my teacher kept raving about it in class and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. I assumed it would be interesting, being that the title is so colorful, but even that was an understatement. I was expecting something comedic, something more along the lines of “The hangover” when I first picked it up. I don’t know how I was so wrong.
I suppose if I’d done my research on Flyn...more Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004
I started reading this because my teacher kept raving about it in class and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. I assumed it would be interesting, being that the title is so colorful, but even that was an understatement. I was expecting something comedic, something more along the lines of “The hangover” when I first picked it up. I don’t know how I was so wrong.
I suppose if I’d done my research on Flynn beforehand, like any intelligent aspiring editor would do, I would’ve known that he was estranged from his father, Jonathan. Instead, I was shocked to find out that for 20 years this man had no clue who his father was except what other people told him. Nothing he heard was good. Nothing he heard gave him any hope.
His memoir recalls his childhood and teenage years, falling in to the same patterns his father was so disdained for. He was intoxicated as often as possible, headed down a path with no return. He makes many comparisons between himself and his father, actually, their troubles with alcohol, their feeling of being “lost” (although Nick’s was much more short-lived than his father’s), and their mutual love of writing.
Flynn’s memoir delves deeply into his time working at the Pine Street Inn in Boston. The Inn is an active homeless shelter, where he encounters many men whom remind him of his father, or that which he knows about him. It seems as though by helping these men, he is in his own way, helping his long-lost father. It seems to almost clear his conscience, although he holds no obligations to the man who he never really knew. His words contradict this however, saying, “If I went to the drowning man the drowning man would pull me under. I couldn't be his life raft."
The author continues to work at the shelter, eventually coming face-to-face with his father again, even though he wasn’t sure if he really wanted that. “…some part of me knew he would show up, that if I stood in one place long enough he would find me, like you're taught to do when you're lost. But they never taught us what to do if both of you are lost, and you both end up in the same place, waiting…” The two eventually become acquainted, Flynn using his father and his pals to make up for lost time. He names his memoir after a phrase he frequently hears muttered from Jonathan, “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.”
I truly enjoyed reading this, and I am not normally one for memoirs. The story is moving and the reality of it is intriguing. I love how its written; once a poet, always a poet and Flynn succeeds in using his brilliant writing style to convey his life story.
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Nov 15, 2011 Steven rated it 4 of 5 stars

I could use a drink…

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn. W.W. Norton and Company, 2004.

The first thing that jumps out at you about this book is the title. One does not pick up a book titled “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” expecting a feel-good tale, or anything which even remotely smacks of optimism. This book is bleak, and Flynn warns you ahead of time that it’s not going to be pleasant.

However, to suggest that reading this book was purely a depressing experience is not do...more I could use a drink…

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn. W.W. Norton and Company, 2004.

The first thing that jumps out at you about this book is the title. One does not pick up a book titled “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” expecting a feel-good tale, or anything which even remotely smacks of optimism. This book is bleak, and Flynn warns you ahead of time that it’s not going to be pleasant.

However, to suggest that reading this book was purely a depressing experience is not doing justice to this work. Flynn’s book is complex, both in structure and in content. He weaves together snippets of various literary styles to create a collage or a kaleidoscope which although tinged with a depressing or grayish hue, nevertheless says a great deal about humanity on the edge.

The book deals predominately with Flynn’s relationship with his degenerate father –a pitiable character who imagines himself an artist and a creative force in the world, but whose direction in life takes him without swerving straight to the streets of Boston as a homeless, mentally and physically debilitated tramp. It is the profound disconnect between Flynn’s father Jonathan’s self-image and his real self which makes this read so difficult.

The parts of this book which occur at the homeless shelter where Nick worked for many years are some of the most captivating of this book. Although his writing does not come off as “preachy,” there is a sense that these chapters are a commentary on social issues, and it challenges us to consider how we view the homeless, and the mental, physical and physiological issues which go along with living on the street.

Although the pace of this collection sometimes slows to a crawl, and sometimes it becomes so mired in the filth of the inner city, a brief respite is offered by several chapters which recount Flynn’s small-time capering with a local group of Mafioso smugglers, and the ongoing motif of the sailboat which Jonathan and his friends periodically inhabit. These chapters are like a lung-full of sea-air in a book which is otherwise polluted with dust, exhaust fumes, the scent of whiskey and body odor. While at sea Flynn embraces an opportunity to separate himself physically and mentally from his father, and the reader enjoys this separation almost as much as the narrator.

There is no doubt that in his lifetime Nick Flynn has had an undue share of trauma, and the events he recounts in “Another Bullshit Night…” hold nothing back, but his story is always compelling and thought-provoking. The way his path intersects with that of his father in an ill-fated way is tragic in a classical sense, and his mother’s suicide elevate this level of tragedy to even greater heights. However, after 270 pages of depressing flashbacks and montages, the impact of these events are to some degree compromised and I honestly struggled to make it to the last page without putting the book down and stepping outside into the sunlight, or without pouring myself a stiff drink… an ironic turn to a book which is filled with warnings of the dangers of alcohol and drugs.

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Nov 15, 2011 David Fenstersheib rated it 4 of 5 stars

Beautifully Boring
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City- By Nick Flynn, W&W Norton Company, 2004

Before taking a class in college and being obligated to go to a book reading I never heard of a Nick Flynn. After his reading, I immediately went out and bought his book to which I couldn't put down. This book is a memoir and while I read it, I had his voice fresh in my mind, and I must say that I feel this has perhaps made me bias to this fantastic book written in what I like to call story poetry.
S...more Beautifully Boring
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City- By Nick Flynn, W&W Norton Company, 2004

Before taking a class in college and being obligated to go to a book reading I never heard of a Nick Flynn. After his reading, I immediately went out and bought his book to which I couldn't put down. This book is a memoir and while I read it, I had his voice fresh in my mind, and I must say that I feel this has perhaps made me bias to this fantastic book written in what I like to call story poetry.
Sometimes he has such simple sentences that are able to reach into the reader's body and make him feel a certain, and feel it intensely.
“Who doesn't want to just disappear, at some point in the day, in a year, to just step off the map and float?”
This is on of my favorite lines because the way he wants you to feel is clear and is all too easy to connect with and associate the feeling of being alone and to drift aimlessly . He has a way of taking something common and twisting it around to make the reader view it from such a different angle, such as the quote.
“Alcohol is the river we sit on the banks of, contemplating. Sometimes we watch ourselves float past, sometimes we watch ourselves sink.”
This one line incorporates everything that deals with drinking. Sometimes you drink and know your limit and can stop and make it through the night and other times you don't, whether it be drinking in celebration or sorrow.
This memoir starts in the year 1965, when Nick Flynn was a six month-old baby and his father left him, his brother and his mother, who was barely 20 years old. Nick begins drinking at age 12 then smoking pot during his high school days, and he finds himself coming close to being on the other side of the homeless shelter he works at as a caseworker. His father, Johnathan, gets evicted and is placed in the same homeless shelter Nick works at. Through conversations manuscripts and letters, Nick learns a lot about his father: A unsuccessful writer, alcoholic, homeless, and a crook.
Having met the writer and this being a memoir my review may not be disinterested, but I promise you that if you read it, you will not be uninterested.

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Nov 15, 2011 Alison Prouty rated it 4 of 5 stars

“It May Be ‘Suck City,’ But It Gives a Good Story.”

“Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” by Nick Flynn. W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2004

“Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” is Nick Flynn’s memoir, detailing his life, his father’s life, and how a homeless shelter reunited them. Flynn’s novel weaves together both his perspective of his childhood and working at a homeless shelter with his father’s perspective of living on the street. He uses a creative blend of short stories, spoken word p...more “It May Be ‘Suck City,’ But It Gives a Good Story.”

“Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” by Nick Flynn. W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2004

“Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” is Nick Flynn’s memoir, detailing his life, his father’s life, and how a homeless shelter reunited them. Flynn’s novel weaves together both his perspective of his childhood and working at a homeless shelter with his father’s perspective of living on the street. He uses a creative blend of short stories, spoken word pieces, and letters he had received throughout the years to tell an innovative, yet familiar story, of a son and father rebuilding their relationship.

One thing that I find conflicting after reading Nick Flynn’s book, is that, while I enjoy the story overall, I find his style of writing perplexing. He speaks very bluntly about situations, particularly when he describes his father sometimes wrapped himself up in newspaper and trash bags and tapes them around himself “so the bag won’t slide down his body” (25). I also appreciate how he blends together the present and the past, his story and his father’s story, to create a narrative that flows together. Normally, constantly jumping back and forth between times irritates me, but Flynn uses dates at the beginning of almost every chapter to help the reader keep track. One of his writing nuances that perplexes me is the way he writes his dialogue. Rather than using traditional quotations, he puts his speech in italics. While I understand this to be a new and innovative approach, I found it a little off-putting because it blended together with any title, like The Button Man (the title of his father’s book), that he mentioned. I also found it confusing because, while I have seen italics used to represent thoughts, I’ve never seen it used for spoken words; so, it would take me a few moments to figure out if a moment in the book was spoken aloud or merely thought.

Part of Flynn’s innovative style that I enjoyed was the blending of the different “chapters.” I enjoyed how some of the chapters seemed like short stories (“Hiss and Fall”), some were letters he collected (“Rule 35” “Like It or Not”), and some that felt like poems or spoken word pieces (“Same Again”). This mix of different genres of writing within the same book is something I’d like to try in my own writing. While it takes a certain amount of bravery to write an honest memoir, I find the inclusion of the letters to be a particularly brave move. If someone doesn’t like what you said about him or her, they can easily claim that you made it up. That is much harder to accomplish when you use direct correspondence, and have copies to back you up.

Overall, “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City” is one of those books where you have to decide for yourself whether you will enjoy it or not. While I appreciated the overall story, it was little things like the dialogue that kept me from completely enjoying the book. However, if Nick Flynn’s inventive style of dialogue doesn’t bother you, then there should be nothing stopping you from enjoying his memoir.
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Nov 15, 2011 Tanna Ray rated it 5 of 5 stars

Nick Flynn
"Another Bullshit Night In Suck City"
A Memoir
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City was a fascinating look into the life of Nick Flynn; his life was so full of strive that you can't make the stuff it up. Going to his reading at UCF was amazing; he read poetry that he wrote about being on the set of his up and coming movie "Being Flynn." The poetry was amazing to listen to; and he is a very lucky man that his amazing memoir is being turned into a movie itself. Nick Flynn is a very accompl...more Nick Flynn
"Another Bullshit Night In Suck City"
A Memoir
Another Bullshit Night In Suck City was a fascinating look into the life of Nick Flynn; his life was so full of strive that you can't make the stuff it up. Going to his reading at UCF was amazing; he read poetry that he wrote about being on the set of his up and coming movie "Being Flynn." The poetry was amazing to listen to; and he is a very lucky man that his amazing memoir is being turned into a movie itself. Nick Flynn is a very accomplished writer, and not many authors can say that their own memoir has had the amazing chance to be turned into a film that is full of very accomplished actors that get to play his incredibly jaded life out on film. I only wish to be able to become half as successful as Nick Flynn himself has become. The title of the book "Another Bullshit Night In Suck City," was a way Nick Flynn would describe his sad and horrible life spent mostly on the streets. The story is about the lives that of Nick Flynn, and his impoverished father Jonathan (Joe), both of their lives end up coming together, though not at first. Nick avoided his father at first, because he had his own problems to deal with, Nick was working in a soup kitchen/shelter for the homeless in his late twenties when his father ended up falling into his life. At this time in Nick's life he was feeling lost and used alcohol to help mend his metaphorical mental wounds; Nick found himself so down-and-out that he himself may have wound up needing help from a homeless shelter, and may have admitted himself in times of despair. This memoir is so touching, to see that a man so wounded mentally and physically, but Nick dug himself out of such sad and tormenting times in his life, and became so successful in his writing career. The memoir is very full of bad language and the short chapters make it an easy read, but at the same time you find yourself feeling like you want to reach out to him. The memoir is so sad, and hopeless; but at the same time you feel appreciative for a man who had to deal with so much in his life; but got to have the courage share his story with the world. The book is a mix of agony, but in a way sweet to see that he and his father got to have some sort of relationship, however messed up that relationship might be, because his father had abandoned him. I really enjoy this part in the memoir: "After a year I decided that the guy was looking into a mirror, just to put it out of my mind. Years later I realized I was wrong." The questions that Nick Flynn fights with in his mind are so important in every man's life especially in Nick Flynn's life that hasn’t had the best connection with his father Jonathan. Questions such as: Who am I? What am I to become? Who is my father, and is he worth my time and effort to become close with him and is he worth my time learn about him and his feelings and views on life? The chapters are short and almost poem like and flow so nicely on the page you want to continue to read, you get sucked into this memoir and all this man had to deal with in his life. It was well written and an amazing read I would reccomend it to my peers and maybe even read it again sometime soon. I cannot wait until the movie version comes out, and will be waiting till I get to see it!(less)

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About Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn is an American poet, memoirist, and playwright.

His most recent book is The Ticking Is The Bomb, a memoir about awaiting his first child while simultaneously learning and fighting against American torture during the Iraq War.
Flynn's had written one play, Alice Invents a Little Game and Alice Always Wins. His most famous book is a memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. He has publi...more

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“Who doesn't want to just disappear, at some point in the day, in a year, to just step off the map and float?” — 54 people liked it

“There are many ways to drown, only the most obvious wave their arms as they're going under.” — 44 people liked it

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