Product Description

In this razor-edged memoir Nick Flynn tells the inventive, heart-breaking and at times darkly comic story of an unconventional reunion between father and son. Nick Flynn met his estranged father at the age of 27 while working in a notorious homeless shelter in Boston. This impromptu meeting forces Flynn to reflect on his family history. Is there any truth to his father's claims to be the greatest living American novelist since Mark Twain and a direct descendant of the Romanov dynasty, or that his grandfather invented the life raft? Another Bullshit Night in Suck City tells the story of Nick's early life with his mother as she struggled to keep the fractured family together, and the eerie transient life that led his father onto the streets. It is a remarkable story of sreconciliation against the odds through the enduring strength of one boy's struggle for survival.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #245706 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 340 pages

Review
"'What a piece of work. I don't usually like memoirs, but if they were all like Nick Flynn's - eloquent, funny, unsentimental, and bravely inventive - I'd read them by the truckload.' Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River; 'No one who reads Another Bullshit Night will ever walk through a city in the same way again.' Michael Cunningham"

Customer Reviews

Truly Excellent...
This is a great "guy" book -- I don't know how women would like it. But it's basically a memoir and a recounting of a father/son relationship. Of course, it's also the story of the author's somewhat difficult coming-of-age.

What makes it so enjoyable is the writing, which is truly excellent. I hate to use the word "poetic" because it might turn some people off - and I don't mean to imply "arty" or "vague" - but there is definitely something lyrical about how the author recalls incidents of his boyhood.

Let me put it this way: the writing is intense. It's concrete, tight, simple -- the prose of an author who is also a poet. But please understand it isn't flowery or flighty. It's very focused work. Substantial.

Also, I appreciate the short chapters, and frequent paragraph breaks which make it very easy to take. Some people have called this memoir depressing. It's not. Besides being a father/son relationship, it's also the story a "failed" writer: the author's father wanted to be a great American author but ended up as a self-deceiving drunk. This is life. For me, the book is realistic without being too grim.

More importantly, it's a book about survival -- the son's survival to adulthood. As a memoir, I found this book to be much better than A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius because it's lot more focused and "compressed" and not so full of self-conscious "irony." Anyway, pick up a copy this great book. Another book I need to recommend is called The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition by Richard Perez, a much lighter book -- but a very substantial, enjoyable and fun read.

Brilliant analysis of a failed father/son relationship
This book is a brilliant analysis of a failed father/son relationship, and the unconventional success of the son based on his own drive and determination. An interesting read for any father or son, and particularly for one in a difficult father/son relationship. Highly recommended.