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The Ticking is the Bomb

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 690 ratings · 130 reviews

A dazzling, searing, and inventive memoir about becoming a father in the age of terror.

In 2007, during the months before Nick Flynn’s daughter’s birth, his growing outrage and obsession with torture, exacerbated by the Abu Ghraib photographs, led him to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in those photos. Haunted by a history of addiction, a relationship with h...more

Hardcover, 283 pages

Published January 18th 2010 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published December 17th 2009)

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Jan 27, 2010 Renee Alberts rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Nikki

Nick Flynn’s moving second memoir is, at its simplest, a meditation on the shadow. In it, he focuses primarily on the idea of torture, combined with his apprehension about his pending fatherhood. As he explores these topics, however, the subjects include his past relationships, his family history (including his suicide mother and alcoholic, homeless father), and his own wrongdoings. Flynn was one of several artists invited to witness accounts of ex-Abu Ghraib inmates, many of whom were tortured...more

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Apr 06, 2012 Matt Galletta added it

Shelves: memoir

Nick Flynn focuses his second memoir, The Ticking is the Bomb, largely around two events: the birth of his first child, and the release of torture photos from Abu Ghraib.[return][return]The majority of the memoir takes place in the years following the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, a time in which Flynn becomes increasingly obsessed with the subject of torture and other political crimes. However, the book often flashes back to Flynn’s childhood and early life, to consider his parents...more

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Jun 08, 2013 Theresa rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Thich Nhat Hahn says it is a mistake to say, "The rain is falling," to say, "The wind is blowing." What is rain if it is not falling? he asks. What is wind if it is not blowing? The falling is the rain, the blowing is the wind."

This, and other beautiful insights from Nick Flynn, in his second memoir. I love this book, but I also am coming to ADORE Mr. Flynn, so there is a good chance this has something to do with it. This book is about...well, its about two crossing themes, really:
1. Nick is ab...more

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May 13, 2013 Evin Hughes rated it 4 of 5 stars

In his wonderfully written memoir, Flynn intricately weaves together his life with the iconic photographs of Abu Ghraib and what it means to be tortured. I got a sense that he has been tortured from his past where his mother committed suicide and his father was an alcoholic, hoarder, bank-robber, and, at one point, homeless.

The stance that Flynn takes on torture is that the purpose of the cruel act is not to gain information—the reason why torture is used by the CIA—but because of power; this is...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Adriane Pabon rated it 3 of 5 stars

I purchased the audiobook of this piece of work, and truly regret not buying the hardcover of the book. It is difficult to follow the pattern of thought in the book since it is not in any particular chronological order. Simply short poems and chapters, so overall it is much better to read the print copy. The overall theme of this book is the subject of torture post-911. He narrates this memoir at the age his mother commits suicide and his dad was an alcoholic mess. He is writing this novel with...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Natasha Martinez rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nick Flynn astounds readers with brutal honesty and captivating imagery in his second memoir, The Ticking is the Bomb.

The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn. W.W Norton and Company, New York, 2010

In The Ticking is The Bomb, Flynn explores the terror of becoming a father, the injustice of war and torture, his affair between to women, his frayed relationship with his father, and the loss of his mother, which decades later, remains an important role in his life. Flynn manages to weave these heavy co...more Nick Flynn astounds readers with brutal honesty and captivating imagery in his second memoir, The Ticking is the Bomb.

The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn. W.W Norton and Company, New York, 2010

In The Ticking is The Bomb, Flynn explores the terror of becoming a father, the injustice of war and torture, his affair between to women, his frayed relationship with his father, and the loss of his mother, which decades later, remains an important role in his life. Flynn manages to weave these heavy concepts into a breathtaking memoir that is lacking neither in its style, nor its content.

We follow Flynn during the time of “Inez’s” – one of his lovers – pregnancy as he explores the concept of torture, both in everyday life and by governments – namely our own. He delivers poignant commentary on the scandal surrounding the Abu Ghraib photographs, boldly expressing his disgust on the matter, simultaneously exploring his own past– the effect of his mother’s suicide and his attempts to reconnect with her, despite her passing, as well as his own time as an alcoholic and discovering his father in the homeless shelter he worked at. He analyzes himself in comparison to his father, a man who claims to be, like the victims of the photographs, tortured, while anxiously awaiting the birth of his unborn daughter, Maeve. As if this is not enough, he eve goes so far as to analyze the complex relationship between himself, Inez, and his other lover, Anna.

Flynn’s structure is something to praise. Each chapter consists of a series of passages that are interconnected, though their content might seem widely unrelated The effect is that the reader’s mind is saved from being numbed by accounts of the narrator’s life that eventually become dull. Instead, the reader is enlightened by important events and thoughts by the narrator that are concise and relevant to his point. Most importantly, the style interlaces the events specific to his life with events we are all familiar with. In a way, it almost mimics our own trains of thought – the way the human mind makes connections between what happens in the world and how it affects each of us personally, what memories and thoughts it calls to the surface of our minds..

Flynn’s greatest talent, however, lies in his brutal honesty, in his refusal to shy away from controversial topics: he speaks openly about his drinking problem, the growing, painful distance between he and his father, his mother’s suicide and his own inclination towards death, and the anger he feels over the Abu Ghraib photographs. He even goes so far to explain his attempts to stay with the two women he is in love with, saying, “For months I’d be speaking to one or the other on my cell phone…I’d come to the conclusion (delusion?) that if I could just get us all in the same room we could figure out a way it could work out. Another part of me, though, would have been perfectly happy to let it all play out in the shadows.” Flynn keeps up with this affair despite the fact that one of the women is pregnant with his child, and while this fact would usually have one shaking their head in disapproval, Flynn’s sincerity, his apparent love for both women and the unborn child is so raw, that we can’t help but to sympathize with him. This honesty is what makes this novel so compelling. We are given a full view of Flynn – his reactions to events in his life, events which have impacted us all, without the omission of less-than-honorable or supposedly cowardly thoughts or actions that most of us would be loathed to admit to, let alone publish to the entire world.
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Nov 12, 2011 Ryan Healy rated it 5 of 5 stars

LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE MISTAKES OF STRANGERS
The Ticking is the Bomb: A Memoir by Nick Flynn
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. , 2010

In his latest book, The Ticking is the Bomb, critically acclaimed memoirist Nick Flynn explores exactly what it means to be a man, an American, and a parent in the violent and tumultuous world that we live in today. Bouncing around through time – but always making note of when each chapter takes place – Flynn deals with such powerful issues as confronting our deepest...more LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE MISTAKES OF STRANGERS
The Ticking is the Bomb: A Memoir by Nick Flynn
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. , 2010

In his latest book, The Ticking is the Bomb, critically acclaimed memoirist Nick Flynn explores exactly what it means to be a man, an American, and a parent in the violent and tumultuous world that we live in today. Bouncing around through time – but always making note of when each chapter takes place – Flynn deals with such powerful issues as confronting our deepest fears, government mandated torture, and death with such gravitas that the reader will hardly be weighed down by the heavy material but, instead, will find themselves reconsidering exactly how they view the world.

The events that Flynn shares from his life vary dramatically. Throughout the memoir, he recalls the time when he was romantically involved with two women and how he reconciled the fact that he loved both of them while also exploring a different kind of love in the relationship he has with his alcoholic and deeply troubled father (who was the subject of Flynn’s previous work Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) in recent years. There are also several scenes that recall his early life, before his mother committed suicide, and how she raised him, switching between respecting her parenting abilities and wondering what it was that drove her to take her own life.

Flynn spends the majority of the book recalling the horrific photographs that were released from abu ghraib, depicting groups of prisoners naked and tortured by American soldiers. In the different flashbacks, he discusses the time when he was called upon to listen to the stories of the prisoners from the photographs and to help spread the word about what happened to them and how that impacted him. There is a powerful segment in the last half of the memoir when Flynn describes a trip to Vietnam that he took with his stepfather – who served in the Vietnam War – and the toll that it had on the former veteran that serves as a great allegory for the impact that abu ghraib has had on Americans, for the overwhelming guilt that comes with knowing what our government is capable of.

As an aspiring writer, something that I really admired about Flynn’s memoir is the way that he wove historical, mythical, and biblical references throughout the book. Between harrowing tales of his time working at a homeless shelter and recalling his relationship with a troubled woman, Flynn explores the tale of Proteus, an amorphous being that can answer any question you ask it so long as you can maintain your grip on the being while it transforms into the thing you fear the most. It truly inspired me how he chose a somewhat obscure myth and made it incredibly relevant to his own life, ultimately discussing what it means to be afraid and how we can overcome our deepest fears.

I also found it completely fascinating how Flynn bounced through time, telling several stories in multiple segments that are scattered between the covers. We don’t how Flynn chose between the two women he loved or why he made the decision he did until towards the end of the book, just like how we get the stories of the prisoners of abu ghraib at different points. Yet he completely avoids making his memoir feel disjointed, somehow making sure that each memory is connected to the other which helps the book flow from start to finish.

Overall, The Ticking is the Bomb is a fantastic exploration of what goes through the mind of a father-to-be and how he deals with the terrifying world that we live and the fact that he will soon be raising a child in it. Flynn’s style is conversational yet still intellectual, allowing readers of any age to really grasp the message and the story that he is trying to send. Suffice it to say, Flynn has succeeded in passing on his life lessons not only to his daughter but to his readers as well.(less)

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Nov 08, 2011 Ashley Collins rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading this memoir is like taking a glimpse into his diary. Flynn confronts his fears and confesses them all in-between the bind of a highlighter yellow cover. The storyline, however, isn’t of the traditional sort that follows a strict chronological order. It rather skips, like a journal, backwards and forwards in time from his feelings of having a baby come into his life, to his childhood where he was deprived of a proper upbringing. Although the structure of this novel is very all over the p...more Reading this memoir is like taking a glimpse into his diary. Flynn confronts his fears and confesses them all in-between the bind of a highlighter yellow cover. The storyline, however, isn’t of the traditional sort that follows a strict chronological order. It rather skips, like a journal, backwards and forwards in time from his feelings of having a baby come into his life, to his childhood where he was deprived of a proper upbringing. Although the structure of this novel is very all over the place, it works in this case because these scatter-brained snip bits of different parts of his life show that Flynn himself is bewildered and trying to make sense of it all as he writes the novel, and as it progresses his words seem like they are a discovery to him just as much as they are for the reader.
The title of the memoir itself is a metaphor to Flynn becoming a father. The impending birth seems almost to be for him like the ticking of the bomb because he fears the birth of his child and fatherhood in general. Flynn takes us back to his childhood where it’s clear that his parent’s weren’t very decent parental figures. The fact that he gives a glimpse, a taste as to how his childhood was, is essential in understanding his present worries of becoming a father, and the fear he has that he’ll abandon his child or won’t love her enough.
But he also fears bringing up his child in the age of terror. He highlights this perfectly in the beginning of the book where he creates a juxtaposition between his baby’s ultrasound picture for the first time to images of the photographs taken at Abu Ghraib. Amidst talking about his life, he interjects torture methods of the U.S into it, and seems almost obsessed with it in the months prior to his child’s birth. The fact that he adds historical elements like the 2004 televised presidential elections and 9/11, gives his story credibility, and demonstrates how he worries for his daughter, for the innocent youth, among these scary present circumstances that he’s witnessed and has attempted to do something about.
I really thought it was interesting how Flynn does an subconscious comparison between good and evil. The evil is the torture methods and everything going on in the media at that time, and the good is his daughter. He uses a simile comparing his daughter to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. “Soon the world will transform from black and white to color, like the moment Dorothy first steps into Oz.” Basically his daughter will grow and see the world around her, see the color, the good and evil, but she will overcome it just like Dorothy did. The diction for this excerpt and the whole novel in general is ironic and beautiful.
The Ticking is the Bomb is an honest and bold piece of writing that was a discovery for me just as much as it was for Flynn. Throughout the novel Flynn, as the character, grows, even more so after the birth of his daughter. It’s a wonderful glimpse into a man’s life, his perspective, and the way he sees his life amid those events that affected us all. This memoir is truly an excellently written one, with as much heart and love only a true writer can master.

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Jul 14, 2010 sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

I almost didn't read this book. I got it from the library, stared at it for a day or two, then shoved it in the bag I wasn't using and ignored it for a week -- sure the cover is bright and the title is catchy, but it's about torture and childhood and making a baby before you're sure what to do with one, and it seemed to have little to do with me.

Then one day I picked it up and flipped it open, and a few hours later I'd read the whole thing. What got me was really the way he moved among these to...more

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Jun 29, 2010 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: stranger-than-fiction

Tick. Tick. Boom. I just realized that I left this book on the other coast, so I can't pull some of the gorgeous and insightful quotes from it that I would if it was sitting here in front of me. It's cool, we'll improvise.

In fact, we'll start with gorgeous and insightful. Flynn's stunning, lyrical prose hit home for me throughout the book. There are some central images (Abu Ghraib photos, homes on fire) and phrases (grains of sand, and there's a whole bit leading up to the moment where the title...more Tick. Tick. Boom. I just realized that I left this book on the other coast, so I can't pull some of the gorgeous and insightful quotes from it that I would if it was sitting here in front of me. It's cool, we'll improvise.

In fact, we'll start with gorgeous and insightful. Flynn's stunning, lyrical prose hit home for me throughout the book. There are some central images (Abu Ghraib photos, homes on fire) and phrases (grains of sand, and there's a whole bit leading up to the moment where the title of the book comes into play that is just breathtaking but now I can't remember the exact phrasing and don't want to muck it up guessing) that are returned to again and again, often in surprising ways from new angles. Awesome.

The format jumps around in time, primarily in very short and easily digestible segments. Many of these are preceded by a year, which is sometimes helpful and sometimes distracting (it made me want to go back and piece together a timeline rather than just go with the flow and keep reading). I should clarify that "easily digestible" refers to the length of the segments and the pretty pretty prose, not to the often very un-pretty subject matter. There is a lot of tragedy here, some of it relentless, some of it pointless, some of it a window to other parts of the story that end up feeling like hope. We visit torture, assorted addictions from a few different angles, death via suicide, death via long-term alcohol abuse, several moments that show so well and without preaching how easy it can be to become someone you don't really want to be, assorted childhood traumas and the shadows they cast (and the light they shed) on adult life, a love triangle (no, wait, this isn't a complete triangle, more like commitment skittishness mixed with the inability or unwillingness to make a choice until the choice either becomes necessary or gets made for you), the fear and joy and anticipation of a first child about to be born. All of these things inform each other in rich and wonderful ways that kept me turning pages just to find out how they would twine together in the next five or twenty or fifty pages.

Most of this book left me some strange combination of disturbed and giddy. Several times I had to put it down just to chew over a particular phrase or transition or subtle revelation for a minute. The writing on its own would get five stars from me. Big love for the prose. And the weaving of the elements is very good. But it could be snugged up a little. There are a couple of bits that could have supported more detail in another segment or two, a couple of points/connections that get hit a little too heavily or a little too frequently, and a couple of segments that don't seem connected by strong enough threads to justify their presence in a volume this slim and intense.(less)

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Mar 13, 2010 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars

One of the trickiest jobs in the world would be writing the summary of Nick Flynn's memoir "The Ticking is the Bomb" for the dust jacket. It is billed as being about Flynn's thoughts on torture after the revelation of photos from Abu Ghraib, juxtaposed with sonogram photos of his daughter. In true memoir fashion, it is also about his alcoholic father, freshly sprung from prison and living intermittently on the streets and in a shelter where Flynn works, his mother's suicide, and the sticky situa...more One of the trickiest jobs in the world would be writing the summary of Nick Flynn's memoir "The Ticking is the Bomb" for the dust jacket. It is billed as being about Flynn's thoughts on torture after the revelation of photos from Abu Ghraib, juxtaposed with sonogram photos of his daughter. In true memoir fashion, it is also about his alcoholic father, freshly sprung from prison and living intermittently on the streets and in a shelter where Flynn works, his mother's suicide, and the sticky situation of being in love with two women -- one who is my favorite character in the movie "Say Anything." ("Joe lies. When he cries.")

This challenge of actual focus is something Flynn cops to early in the book. He isn't exactly sure how to describe this piece to those who ask:

"If asked I'll sometimes say that I'm writing about torture, but I've found that if I say the word 'torture' many go glassy-eyed, silent, as if I'd just dropped a stone into a deep, deep well. Sometimes I say I'm writing about my unborn daughter, about my impending fatherhood -- five months to go, the clock's ticking -- but I don't want to jinx it."

His story has plenty of "Dear Diary" moments, dated entries, that are not in chronological order and about the size of a 100 calorie snack pack, about people, places and the more emo grit from Flynn's past. The drugs, the bad behavior, this girlfriend and that one.

Flynn is an amazing writer, plunking down quiet sentences that make really thoughtful paragraphs. His roots as a poet are as obvious as bra straps under a tank top. In a chapter called "Worksong" -- my favorite passage in this book -- he addresses how some days will be spent making love, some will be spent getting high, some will be spent reading "Ulysses" ... "Some of the days you are given will be spent in a strange city, and at the end of the day you will know that you have spoken to no one except the girl you got your coffee from, no one except here. There will always be days like this."

But, and you know there is always a but, I just could not get into this story. The lines connecting his stories seemed fractured. It would be best read roulette style: Pick it up and read a chapter, come back a few days later and read another random chapter.

His style seems to ooze with emotion and thoughtfulness, but lacks personality and so all of those emotional words become more clinical: Pass the scalpel. This is like the cliche of a homecoming queen, all beauty, no spark.

And this says more about me than it does about him: But when I figured out that the mother of his child is Lili Taylor, whom he calls "Inez," I took a greedy, E! satisfaction in reading sections about their life. (less)

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Feb 09, 2010 Peter Clothier rated it 5 of 5 stars

I obviously did not want to read this book. It first arrived in the mail, as an advance review copy, a several months ago, and I consigned it casually to the pile of books that I might read some day. But I didn't read it. There was something about it, obviously, that I did not like. Perhaps it was the cover. Perhaps it was the color of the cover--a bright lemon yellow. Perhaps it was the title of one of the author's previous publications, boldly printed at the bottom of the cover, to pull the re...more I obviously did not want to read this book. It first arrived in the mail, as an advance review copy, a several months ago, and I consigned it casually to the pile of books that I might read some day. But I didn't read it. There was something about it, obviously, that I did not like. Perhaps it was the cover. Perhaps it was the color of the cover--a bright lemon yellow. Perhaps it was the title of one of the author's previous publications, boldly printed at the bottom of the cover, to pull the reader (reviewer) in: "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City." Spare me, I may have thought. Perhaps it was the image on the cover that I found offensive, a squatting figure vaguely resembling the Buddha, fingertips barely touching, in meditation posture, doubling as a bomb or hand grenade with a lit fuse attached. Perhaps it was the book's title, The Ticking Is the Bomb, which I may have judged to be at once obscene and cute. Then, a couple of months later, the hard copy arrived and I still did not want to read it.

Then, just two days ago, for whatever reason, I picked it up. Perhaps something moves us to pick up a book just when we need to read it. Because I soon realized--a few pages in--that this was, is, an important, urgent, timely book, and one that I had to read. I re-learned a lesson from that ridiculous old cliche: you can't judge a book by its cover...

So here it is, The Ticking Is the Bomb, by Nick Flynn. I have just finished reading it, and was engrossed from the first page to the last of the notes, at the end, citing sources from the book's wide-ranging, generous quotations and references and offering further insight into its meaning. (Even these were as unconventional as the text itself, rejecting that old, familiar academic format.)

It's a memoir. Nick Flynn is about to become a father, and he is determined to face every last one of his demons before the event, in order, I think, to prepare himself. His personal demons, that is, and those of the world which his child is about to enter.

His personal demons include: a father who abandoned him early in his life, a jailbird (armed robbery,) a victim to demons of his own--alcoholism, addiction, homelessness, destitution, hoarding...; a mother, who abandoned herself to countless lovers, each of them tortured in his own way, or criminal, and who ended her own life with a bullet, leaving her son to agonize over her loss; his own addictions (Nick's) to alcohol, drugs, women. At the start he is "in love" with two, faithful to neither and unable to trust himself to a commitment. He is lost. He seeks to lose himself, literally, for a spell, at sea. He rejects the comfort and stability of an anchor.

And the demons of the world at large: war--the ghosts of Vietnam, the needless bloodshed in Iraq...--terror, corruption, torture, institutional lies, profiteering. Greed for power. Cruelty. Torture. Flynn keeps bringing us back to torture. The recurring theme in so many of the brief, a-chronological entries in this memoir is Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration's justification and use of torture in the wake of the destruction of the Twin Towers. We are implicated, in these pages, in an America whose values have been perverted in the name of national security. Our Virgil, through this Dante-esque vision of inferno, is tortured by his own implication, the perversion of his soul. He does not spare himself, in the journey he must now undertake toward fatherhood, toward the responsibility of bringing new, young, innocent, beautiful life into this planet. He understands that he cannot look for salvation in the daughter he will soon be father to, he must find it in himself.

If he does succeed in finding salvation of a kind, in a world the threatens to disintegrate into darkness and meaninglessness, it is through this searing, unsparing, rigorous descent into the depths of his own mind. Each one of his--each relatively short, always gripping--excursions takes him deeper (takes us deeper) into the mystery of being human: having a body with its needs, having feelings, having families, having experiences with others, being surrounded and sometimes seemingly trapped by events beyond control, beyond comprehension, impervious to reason. He finds--I'm happy to say--in Buddhist teachings, including but not restricted to those of Thich Nhat Hanh, a way in which that mystery can be, if not understood or explained, at least accepted for what it is in each given moment; at least come to terms with.

The birth of Flynn's daughter brings him, at end end--I'm also happy to report--to a curious joy, a glimpse of light in the darkness, a sense of personal commitment and stability. His book is not an easy read, though it reads easily. I have not read any of the poetry I understand Flynn writes, but it is clear from these pages that he sees things, feels things, comes to terms with things as a poet--through the flow of words and image into language that is at once beautiful and strong. His book, as I said earlier, is urgent and important in a world like ours, a beacon of authenticity and courage at a time when too many of us cower with fear in the face of the world's vicissitudes and uncertainties. "The Ticking Is the Bomb" has much to teach us about our responsibility to ourselves and to each other, about personal integrity and fearlessness, and about the values we must each embrace if we are to be worthy of the gift that is our life.(less)

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Oct 30, 2012 Mandy Jo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nineties-nostalgia, texas-themed

This week’s headline? "I'll be damned."

Why this book? Paul Dano moment

Which book format? borrowed classmate's hardback

Primary reading environment? "the last resort"

Any preconceived notions? "Standard Operating Procedure"

Identify most with? "like Anjelica Huston"

Three little words? "John Fucken Doe"

Goes well with? cupful of days

Recommend this to? "my Fairy Queen"

I couldn't help looking at this book from an editorial point of view. At first, it annoyed me that he seemed to be under pressure to get...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Michael Pankratz rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Ticking is the Bomb was required reading for class, and I'm not usually a huge fan of non-fiction/memoir. But Flynn's prose is so spare and condensed, so effective, that it's hard not to be sucked in, tossed around as if inside a washing machine, and then spit out, clean and new and enlightened.

Flynn says he's writing about torture. He juxtaposes the horrors of interrogation torture (Abu Ghraib, Vietnam) with the self-inflicted torture of his love life and family life. This may seem like an...more

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Jan 19, 2010 Patrick O'Neil rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really liked Nick Flynn's first memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. So when I saw the review for The Ticking Is The Bomb in the Sunday LA Times, I didn't even bother to read it. I didn't want someone else's opinion to get in the way. Luckily I was meeting a friend that afternoon to hang out in the rain, and we had decided to first meet up at Skylight Books - where I bought their next to last copy.

Flynn's also a great poet, which, at least in my opinion, greatly influences his writing...more

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Oct 20, 2011 Katie Willingham rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book of Nick Flynn's I've read and the second book of his dealing with torture, and specifically Abu Ghraib. I loved The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands, Flynn's more recent collection of poetry on the subject, but this book was wholly different and wholly rewarding in different ways. His poetic sense is still there, showcased in the format--vignettes, fragments, snippets threaded together to form themes and plots that awaken the mind intrigue the heart. I think the form was...more

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Nov 03, 2009 jeremy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-bio

nick flynn's newest work, the ticking is the bomb, is a memoir much in the same vein as its predecessor, another bullshit night in suck city, although much grander in scope and insight. whereas the earlier book was mainly concerned with the personal, in the ticking is the bomb flynn trains his poetic gaze upon a post-9/11 america that condones torture and entwines this troubling aspect of our present with his own growing realizations about life, love, addiction, and anticipating fatherhood. comp...more nick flynn's newest work, the ticking is the bomb, is a memoir much in the same vein as its predecessor, another bullshit night in suck city, although much grander in scope and insight. whereas the earlier book was mainly concerned with the personal, in the ticking is the bomb flynn trains his poetic gaze upon a post-9/11 america that condones torture and entwines this troubling aspect of our present with his own growing realizations about life, love, addiction, and anticipating fatherhood. comprised of short, essay-like vignettes, the book shimmers with sincerity, candor, and wisdom. the more flynn strives to make sense of the insensible, the more it seems he understands facets of his own troubling past.

in many ways, the ticking is the bomb is concerned with the nature of relationships. flynn tries to make sense of his role in many a varied relationship; the one he's had with his father, his mother, ex-lovers, his unborn child, with those that countenance unspeakable war crimes, his craft, and his own unsettled past. this is certainly flynn's most mature work to date, and it is anything but subtle. flynn is a tender, thoughtful writer with a strong command of language, seemingly committed to writing with devastating intellectual and emotional honesty. the ticking is the bomb, like the best of memoir-style works, by the end allows the author to slip aside, leaving in his place a reader whom then must, for him or herself, withstand the penetrating gaze of self-criticism.

from "the uses of enchantment (flying monkeys)":

"sometimes the story we tell about ourselves can be a type of spell. sometimes it's about a love that never should have ended, sometimes it's about a family fortune squandered, and sometimes it's about a war we shouldn't have lost but did. sometimes it's an echo of a story from our childhoods, a fairy tale, a story of what could have been saved, what could have been salvaged, if we'd just held on a little longer. a story of not giving up, as they say in aa, before the miracle comes. or the story i carry, unuttered-- if my mother had just made it to monday, bewildered but alive... the structure of these types of stories fit into what is known as "redemptive narratives"-- once i was lost, but now i'm found. it's aristotle's poetics, it's jesus coming out of the desert, and now it's reenacted, over and over, on daytime television. by now it's nearly hardwired into us, but is it possible that this same narrative structure is now being used, by some, as a justification for the use of torture? the idea being that if we push the prisoner a little more, if we don't give up when it becomes unpleasant, if we can ignore the screams, the disfigurement, the voice in our heads, then the answer will come, the answer that will save the world. and if the tortured dies in your hands, without giving the answer, will this mean you were wrong, or merely that the technique must be refined? or if the answer he gives is worthless, if it is a lie, will that mean we must push a little further, hold on a little longer? force his head under water? make his eyes electric? does it mean that the doctors must be brought in, the feeding tubes inserted, the body kept alive? and if we continue to cling to this way of telling our stories, this fairy tale, long after we've found our way out of the woods, at what point can we then be said to be under the effect of some spell, some enchantment?

(less)

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Jan 06, 2012 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

So now I have two favorite memoirs. I'll be shelving The Ticking is the Bomb book next to Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.

I haven't yet read Nick Flynn's earlier book, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, but that will soon change as I ordered it after reading the first chapter of this book.

This book is sort of a collage. It's a bunch of intersecting chapters about such diverse topics as fatherhood, relationships, and torture, spurred by the notorious photo...more So now I have two favorite memoirs. I'll be shelving The Ticking is the Bomb book next to Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.

I haven't yet read Nick Flynn's earlier book, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, but that will soon change as I ordered it after reading the first chapter of this book.

This book is sort of a collage. It's a bunch of intersecting chapters about such diverse topics as fatherhood, relationships, and torture, spurred by the notorious photographs of prisoner abuse by American troops at Abu Ghraib. Interspersed throughout are interesting little tidbits about American cultural phenomena like Elvis, the movie the Wizard of Oz, and filmmaker Errol Morris. Ultimately, as is set out in the beginning, it's a book about getting lost, holding yourself accountable, and finding your way back. (". . . [W]hen you find yourself alone in a dark wood having lost the way, you may find it easier to blame someone else. . . [b]ut, . . . if you are honest, you will only be able to blame yourself. Life can, of course, blindside you, yet often as not we choose to be blind--agency, some call it." And we experience this getting lost/finding the way back both with Flynn on a personal level, but also on a national level. It's the rare book that can hold a mirror up to one's own life and have it reflect back on the nation as a whole.

I am ashamed to say that I wouldn't pick up a book about torture at Abu Ghraib, even though I think it's important that we know about it as Americans. But the trick of this book is that using his own experiences-with fatherhood, with relationships-Flynn manages to demonstrate some of what happened at Abu Ghraib, its depravity, and why we should care. He makes mind-blowing connections between seemingly disparate ideas and events, but presents it all so smoothly that you don't realize that your mind is being blown until the end. For example, in a 3-page section called "solaris (house of strange fathers)," Flynn describes a scene from an obscure 1972 film, explores what prompted his interest in/obsession with Abu Ghraib, discusses the process of aging and becoming grounded, and provides an anecdote about a Far Side cartoon, relating it to the creation of the universe. Sounds confusing, yet there is a thread that runs through each of these small tangents, making each seem to lead naturally to the next.

More broadly, the book as a whole makes you realize that people are people and the same flaws that drive us to do crazy things in our own lives contribute to catastrophic historic events, like Abu Ghraib. Read it for Flynn's gorgeous prose but emerge a better, more informed citizen.(less)

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Jan 09, 2010 Colin Miller rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Delve in to any book of the Nick Flynn canon and you’ll find a couple of threads that run throughout: 1) That his mother committed suicide; and 2) That he met his unstable father—who left when he was six months old—while working at a homeless shelter in Boston. Depending on what (poetry or memoir) book you read, one of these stories will be emphasized, so it’s neat to piece together Flynn’s past from various reads, but his latest memoir, The Ticking is the Bomb, was supposed to be different.

In...more Delve in to any book of the Nick Flynn canon and you’ll find a couple of threads that run throughout: 1) That his mother committed suicide; and 2) That he met his unstable father—who left when he was six months old—while working at a homeless shelter in Boston. Depending on what (poetry or memoir) book you read, one of these stories will be emphasized, so it’s neat to piece together Flynn’s past from various reads, but his latest memoir, The Ticking is the Bomb, was supposed to be different.

In the months leading up to his daughter’s birth, Flynn had become increasing obsessed with torture, outraged by the Abu Ghraib photographs, and wondered what kind of world he was bringing her into. This was 2007, but the memoir hops all over in non-linear fashion, plucking out a variety of memories—some lasting a paragraph, some lasting a few pages—on a variety of topics: the aforementioned threads, loving two women at the same time, his time as a criminal, etc., but again, this book was supposed to be different, focused on torture; questioning its validity, effectiveness and necessity, even in—especially in—a post-911 America.

I’m all for subtlety, throwing out seemingly unrelated parts of the past and seeing how it shapes who we are now, what we believe, but The Ticking is the Bomb doesn’t have the focus that it should. There are some great sections on Flynn’s interview with a man who was held at Abu Ghraib, watching one of his mother’s former boyfriends return to Vietnam to ask for forgiveness, his own experiences in foreign countries and becoming a father for the first time, but there’s just not enough on the main topic and too much of everything else. I don’t mind having the old safety stories re-explored—even when Flynn is reusing phrases from his poetry, simply putting back together what line breaks snapped—but if torture was the focus, the end product doesn’t show it.

Maybe the torture topic would have been best covered in a shorter, more direct essay. Maybe he could have gone through a history of torture, covering various angles, various political and personal opinions, various people from all sides of the debate—something I would take when filtered through Flynn’s style—but as much as I love the author’s even voice, his delicate choosing of each word, The Ticking is the Bomb is a lot of missed opportunity and the countdown doesn’t find a place to detonate. Read Flynn’s stellar first memoir instead. Two stars, but reaching higher. (less)

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Mar 09, 2011 Tammy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Nick Flynn is a poet and it shows.

This memoir was not presented in a linear 'this, then this, then this' format. It is fragmented and scattered and often it is left to the reader to put the pieces together, but then - I've always sort of liked puzzles. In the end, I felt like I'd had a nice long conversation with the author - jumping freely between the intertwined themes of torture and love and abandonment and war and commitment and homelessness and shadows and fatherhood and suicide - life.

I pa...more

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May 15, 2011 Rosianna rated it 4 of 5 stars

For someone whose political knowledge in many ways stems from the aftermath of 9/11, I found The Ticking Is the Bomb to be refreshingly relevant and well done. In an attempt to reconcile his impending fatherhood with a sense of disembodiment, not to mention trying to come to terms with the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison, Flynn comes across as a fractured individual slowly piecing things back together and using humour, literature, the voices of others and above all, a poetic sensibility to do...more

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Jun 12, 2010 Philip rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs, non-fiction

As I've said before, I'm a sucker for a good memoir. As it turns out, I'm a sucker for any memoir - even if it's not really that good.

I'm not sure what it is that separates my appreciation of memoir from that of biography or autobiography, but I think it's this: whereas a biography or autobiography demand truth, for a memoir - honestly, only verisimilitude.

I'm not saying memoirs should be endless pages of fabricated, expanded or exaggerated stories... (i.e. James Frey you took it a little too...more As I've said before, I'm a sucker for a good memoir. As it turns out, I'm a sucker for any memoir - even if it's not really that good.

I'm not sure what it is that separates my appreciation of memoir from that of biography or autobiography, but I think it's this: whereas a biography or autobiography demand truth, for a memoir - honestly, only verisimilitude.

I'm not saying memoirs should be endless pages of fabricated, expanded or exaggerated stories... (i.e. James Frey you took it a little too far...) but memory fails and distorts honest attempts to narrate life. (Granted, I've never attempted this myself, but my wife and friends tell me my stories tend to get grander with time even though I believe and maintain I'm telling them the same way.)*

The Ticking is the Bomb is a memoir about the birth of a daughter, the homelessness of a father, the effed up love life of the narrator, and above all else - torture. Torture trumps the rest of the cards in the deck, which makes for an odd memoir because Nick Flynn had never been tortured. So, a lot of it is a memoir about what he thinks about torture and interviews he's had with famous people who have been tortured - but that doesn't really make it a memoir does it?

I've had a lot of thoughts on the issue. Maybe he was trying to mix his issues (his memoir) in with the issues of America (America's memoir.) If that's the case, I guess I'll keep it on my "memoirs" shelf.

Something else: using the very advanced scientific techniques of guessing, I'd say that 37.442% of this memoir is made up of Flynn's dreams. This guy has to be a genius. If I don't write down my dreams within 2-3 hours of waking up, generally they're gone. I'm not questioning the integrity of the author or anything. I don't care if the dreams were conveniently real or if he made them up to make the story flow. I guess my point is this: sometimes I get annoyed when people tell me the dream they had last night because, let's just face it... it's a little too crazy and it wasn't real.

Am I an apologist for torture? No. But I think I understand their rationale. Flynn seems to think that there are some people out there who enjoy torture. Maybe there are, but that's like saying there are people out there who enjoy abortion, or who enjoy war. Maybe there are a sadistic few who actually take pleasure in those things - but they are not the majority they are sometimes made out to be. There's a difference between saying, "He thinks torture is necessary to get information to keep this country safe," and "He enjoys beating people."

All in all it was a decent book. I flim-flam on the torture issue sometimes, but generally come down pretty hard on his side of the fence.
Who knows how history will judge us? Hopefully somebody will be able to rewrite it well enough to make the entire world be filled with only heroes. If not, I just hope I remain mediocre enough to stay out of the books.

*Sorry for all the parenthetical asides. It's a bad habit.(less)

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May 24, 2012 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Well, THIS one hit emo-paydirt.

This one affected me in a much deeper way than Another Bullshit Night in Suck City..likely because of the focus on his dead mother, which was I found to be a sad yet blank spot in the former book.

His every story about her and how she slipped away from her life is a killer....throw in my favorite Winnicott quote, tales of conflicted love, personal recovery struggles, torment over our country's participation in torture, and a little Thich Nhat Hanh....and you have t...more

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Feb 08, 2010 Patrick Brown rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirsandbios

There are a few books I'd like to mail to President Obama, not because I hope he'll read them and talk about them, and therefore get everyone else to read them (though that'd be nice) but because I think they say something about an important issue in a way that I simply can't. I could write Obama a letter about torture, about how I feel about it being used in my name, but it wouldn't achieve half of what Flynn does in this bizarre, floating memoir.

Somehow, despite enormous odds, Flynn manages to...more

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Dec 28, 2010 Zach VandeZande rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wish I'd not read the long exerpt from this book (that was in Vanity Fair, I think?) before getting to it, because reading it I felt a little cheated, and I liked it less than I would have as a result. Similar to Flynn's Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, this book is deliberately fragmented, which is just the right kind of mirror to perceive the postmodern narrative of terror and torture that Flynn is trying to lay out in a memoir that deals with what it means to be a father and a son in a...more

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Aug 18, 2010 Geeta rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is really four and a half stars. I took off a half for the dreams, which got to be tiresome after a while. But I appreciate what Flynn is doing here--putting together seemingly disconnected things: the photos of Abu Ghraib and interviews with the victims; the choice he has to make between two women he loves; the impending birth of his first child; memories of his own (hapless) parents; and a host of literary allusions too numerous and so well integrated into the text, it's hard to remember...more

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Jan 07, 2011 Caroline Rothnie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs-read

This was my first introduction to Nick Flynn, a wonderful poet (Blind Huber, Some Ether) and memoirist (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City). This book, his second memoir, consists of short segments scattered about in time. The threads they create, the story if there is one: choosing between two women he loves, wrestling morally with torture (wrt Guantanamo) and the process of writing about torture, and becoming a father. It's a compelling method of storytelling, though I did sometimes wish for...more

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Feb 16, 2010 Roseanne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Even without having read Nick Flynn's collection of poetry SOME ETHER, I would have known that he was a poet. His rhetoric and syntax is textured and weighted with meaning, each word having a deeper significance to the whole work (even the acknowledgments is poetic). I wanted to read his memoir to see how he merged his personal narrative with the reality waiting for him on the outside, and I am pleased to see it worked. His jigsaw chronology created a flowing narrative, inclusive but not depende...more

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Jan 12, 2010 Rachel Bussel is currently reading it

The Ticking Is The Bomb is a deceptively powerful memoir. It starts off being about love, family, falling for two women, and continues to be about that, while also delving deep into Flynn's past, especially his mother's suicide and his father's homelessness and their strained relationship. He starts out by musing: "For me, `dating' often felt like reading Tolstoy--exhilarating, but a struggle, at times, to keep the characters straight. The fact that the chaos had been distilled down to two women...more The Ticking Is The Bomb is a deceptively powerful memoir. It starts off being about love, family, falling for two women, and continues to be about that, while also delving deep into Flynn's past, especially his mother's suicide and his father's homelessness and their strained relationship. He starts out by musing: "For me, `dating' often felt like reading Tolstoy--exhilarating, but a struggle, at times, to keep the characters straight. The fact that the chaos had been distilled down to two women--one I'll call Anna, the other was Inez--felt, to me, like progress."

He weaves all this, along with his partner pregnancy and later the birth of his daughter, in with his research into the United States government's use of torture, and what this means, to him, the U.S., and the world. There is a strong connection here to Stephen Elliott's The Adderall Diaries (Elliott makes a brief appearance here when he introduces Flynn to a dominatrix friend, Mistress Yin), in that both veer from the personal to the political and back in a way that could be disconcerting but isn't because it's so masterfully done, and because Flynn finds the connections between the two. What's beautiful about this book is that it isn't simply an indictment of torture, though it certainly is that, as Flynn details his experience listening to testimony from those who were photographed and tortured at Abu Ghraib, along with varying reactions to the publication of those photographs, but that each image, each word, each snapshot of a moment, gets layered upon what's come before and plants the seeds for what will come after.

There's poetry to the way The Ticking Is The Bomb flows, a way that a simple word like "handshake" gets transformed into an act of betrayal, and Flynn returns to the images and themes he's introduced us to in often unsettling, but gripping ways. Oh, and the notes at the end are as powerful as any of the rest of the book, weaving in Janet Malcolm on the impact of suicide and some chilling thoughts on the likes of DOJ attorney John Yoo and others involved in the Bush Administration. Flynn works his way from zombie movies to drinking to lovers to travel to grammar to love and fatherhood. Though this is indeed a memoir, memory is questioned repeatedly, with Flynn making readers think through the same questions he ponders over the meaning of his mother's suicide note, over what a given photograph (or photo caption) actually means. The shortness of the chapters only serves, like the best short stories, to highlight their intensity, and, unlike standalone short stories, they merge to create a whole that's starkly honest in its complexity.(less)

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Jan 09, 2011 Angie rated it 1 of 5 stars

I was really looking forward to the advanced copy of this book, so I'm unfortunately very disappointed by how much I did not like it. I'll be honest - I couldn't get past the 10th chapter, and since each "chapter" is really only a page and a half, that was only about 20-30 pages into the book. The book is written like an editor collected several of the author's stream of conscious writings that hardly connect and, well, "let's call it a book." Yep, the overuse of "let's call her..." got real old...more

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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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“Some mornings you wake up fully in your body, and you know this is all there is--the air, the shape your body makes in the air, your hand, the skin that covers your hand, the air that covers your skin, the light that fills the air, a few colors in the light, this one thought, this dream dissolving--it is a dream that, in your half-awake state, embarrasses you. You don't tell it to the woman waking up beside you, the woman you love, because it is about another woman, whom you might also love. This is the dream you need to hold onto, this is your shadow speaking, attempting to bewilder you again. Sometimes, if you lay still, you can feel the air entering each cell, sometimes you can feel the blood in your lips. Sometimes, if you lay very still, you can feel the whole web tremble.” — 24 people liked it

“(2002) In Rome, month upon month, I struggled with how to structure the book about my father (He already had the water, he just had to discover jars). At one point I laid each chapter out on the terrazzo floor, eighty-three in all, arranged them like the map of an imaginary city. Some of the piles of paper, I imagined, were freestanding buildings, some were clustered into neighborhoods, and some were open space. On the outskirts, of course, were the tenements--abandoned, ramshackled. The spaces between the piles were the roads, the alleyways, the footpaths, the rivers. The bridges to other neighborhoods, the bridges out...In this way I could get a sense if one could find their way through the book, if the map I was creating made sense, if it was a place one would want to spend some time in. If one could wander there, if one could get lost.” — 4 people liked it

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