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Title: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
ISBN: 0393329402
Author:
Nick Flynn
Publicate Date: 2005-09-12
Publish: 2005-09-12
List Price: $13.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.80
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.65
Amazon Merchant Price: $11.16
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Senior Writers Seminar - Dominski
This memoir recounts the story of a young man who, fatherless as a boy, gets to know his father for the first time through his job at a homeless shelter. The story alternates between chapters about the author's childhood, or even before he was born, and chapters about him as a grown man, encountering his homeless father. The author's very detailed descriptions of his job at the shelter provide a very stark look into homelessness in a city, "Lice thrive so well on his body that they can be seen crawling over him from twenty paces." (Page 47) These descriptions of the homeless the author encounters resonate with the reader because the author is living with the knowledge that his father may be living an equally desperate lifestyle.
As the chapters switch between time frames of the author's life, they also switch between different writing styles; from stream-of-consciousness writing to contained narratives, which also switch between first and third person. The contained narratives, which are written in first person unless they precede the author's birth, are short enough to only cover one event at a time. In another book, such a disjointed development of events may be not work quite as well, but in this memoir, the short chapters allow the author to select which actions of his father's he want to emphasize to the readers. This characteristic of the book causes the father to be cast as the author remembers him, and although this description of him may stray from the actual truth a little because of this, thus is the consequence of a memoir. Interspersed amongst the action-driven chapters are sections of stream-of-consciousness writing that provide a direct look into the author's emotions. Because of this, these chapters contain some of the most powerful writing in the book, "For if you are not responsible for your own father, who is? Who is going to pick him up off the ground if not you?" (Page 27) These sections, though spare in comparison to the narrative chapters, are powerful because they give the author an opportunity to explore his feelings about his father. In these streams of the author's consciousness, he struggles with how responsible he should be for his father, and how much he should let him into his life. Standing next to the narrative sections, these parts allow the author to reflect on and essentially respond to his own actions. It is this relationship in the book, between what has happened and how the author feels about it in retrospect, that makes this memoir so successful at recounting the author's inner struggles.
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2: Having lived on the streets of Las Vegas...
I can tell you that this author has embellished little. I avoid four letter words in my books simply because I think they distract. Nevertheless, I understand Flynn's reasoning here, and at least for me, the language in this book was palatable. What I found most interesting about this work was how different street living is in Boston compared to Las Vegas and East Los Angeles. Then East LA is a 24/7 war zone. While Boston and Las Vegas are similar in the fact that it's the police in these two cities you had better be wary and respectfully of; in East LA, as bad as the police are, badges are a welcome sight compared to MS-13.
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3: The blurb doesn't live up to the contents
The assertion a life worth writing about by an individual who can write well proves to be simply that, an assertion. Flynn's talents (?) are mediocre, the book tiresome, repetitive and unfortunately like most of the other 'my childhood was the pits' by which I mean it may self serve the author.
None of the characters were likeable despite being deeply flawed (which often makes the person likeable).
I doubt Flynn's daddy was worth writing about.
It's done now.
Do yourself a favour. Spend your money on a more worthy book - that's just about any other book so the choice is massive.
As for Flynn being a poet, that is still open for debate. If his prose is at all similar to his poetics, his poetry would suck.
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4: Good memoir
Good, effective memoir/story of the author's father's struggle with homelessness and alcohol and drug use. Very well-written and compelling. A good read.
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5: I really liked this book!
I was very interested in the title of this book and when I picked it up, on further examination, I had to read it. It was a fast read for me.
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