Introduction
The memoir, “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City”, by Nick Flynn can be aptly described as a tale of redemption, of finding one’s self and how despite the passage of time and the buildup of resentment family is still considered an essential aspect of one’s existence.
When reading through the early chapters of the book I could not help but think that this work was a way in which the author was trying to develop a sense of closure with his past and with the departure of this father early on.
An example of this particular point of view can be seen in the following passage:
âSome 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.â (Flynn, 1 â 357).
From this passage alone it can be seen that the author, in a way, was always waiting for his father to arrive. The sense of loss that is exuded by this passage is palpable and it is obvious that the author truly did miss his father while growing up.
Upon further reading it can even be implied that the author in effect blames his father for all the misery that occurred to him. In that if he had only been there, if had tried his best to be a father instead of taking the easy way out then maybe things would have been different.
Their family might have been happier and his mother would not have had a succession of failed relationships and drinking binges which lead to her inevitable depression and death. T
hus, from a certain perspective it can be said that the memoir is a way in which the author showcases his “inner demons”, shows his vulnerability by hesitating to overcome them and in the end portrays how he come to terms with who he is, who his father is and what he should do with his life in order to move forward.
The Author’s Inner Demon’s
The following is a passage which I believe exemplifies the theme of the first few chapters of the memoir:
“In my experience, whatever happens clings to us like barnacles on the hull of a ship, slowing us slightly, both uglifying and giving us texture. You can scrape all you want, you can, if you have money, hire someone else to scrape, but the barnacles will come back or at least leave a blemish on the steel.â (Flynn, 1 â 357)
My interpretation of this particular passage is that the author is implying that all the misery, all the suffering and the plethora of unfortunate events that have occurred to him weighs him down to such an extent that they are the primary cause behind his drinking and rather dark outlook on life.
It connects rather succinctly to the theme of his early life that was bereft of a father, lost his mother, was aimless, dark and dismal without a single ray of hope. The first few chapters of the novel show an individual that has experienced dark times and has let them affect him to such an extent that they have almost become a part of him.
His loss, his anger and even the depression that pervades his every action have become so ingrained in his being that it is almost impossible to tell where the narrator starts and the misery begins.
Though the author does not outright state through an emotional outbursts that he is miserable, he does imply such a characteristic through his description of events, the portrayal of the environment in which he finds himself in and the manner in which there seems to an aimlessness in his actions.
This descent into aimless oblivion is best exemplified by the following passage which is an excerpt of a far longer bit of prose which elaborates on the drinking habits of the author:
“The usual I say. Essence. Spirit. Medicine. A taste. I say top shelf. Straight up. A shot. A sip. A nip. I say another round. I say brace yourself. Lift a few. Hoist a few. Work the elbow. Bottoms up. Belly up. Set âem up. Whatâll it be. Name your poison. I say same again. I say all around. I say my good man. I say my drinking buddy. “ (Flynn, 1 â 357)
From this excerpt and the chapter that it finds itself in, readers are shown the classic “descent into drunken stupor” that often times features characters who want to lose themselves into the very drinks they imbibe.
The author in this particular instance shows how drinking for him is an escape, it is a way in which he overcomes his need for a relationship with the past which is strengthened by the reappearance of his father in his life.
This passage is an expression of the inner demons which continue to haunt the author, pervade his existence and create the means by which he wallows in self-imposed emotional exile.
From my own point of view, it is during the first few chapters that the author shows how vulnerable he is wherein through the interspaced elaborations on the conditions of the poor and homeless it can be seen that Flynn is an individual haunted by his past, who cannot move on and views the reappearance of his father as a reminder of all that could have been but was lost.
Hesitation in Overcoming his Issues
The following is the best example out of all the possible excerpts within the memoir that exemplifies the initial hesitance of the author in overcoming his past:
âSometimes I’d see my father, walking past my building on his way to another nowhere. I could have given him a key, offered a piece of my floor. A futon. A bed. But I never did. If I let him inside I would become him, the line between us would blur, my own slow-motion car wreck would speed up.” (Flynn, 1 â 357)
What can be derived from this passage is that despite the fact that Flynn could have helped his father, accepted him into his home and given him a place to sleep he refused to do so.
While he states that he did not want to exacerbate his own descent into oblivion, the fact is that his refusal is more along the lines of what his father represents throughout the memoir. Based on my own personal perspective, I believe that his father in the early and middle parts of the memoir acted as a symbol of his accumulated problems in life.
His father was a reminder of what he had lost, his misery, his depression at the present and what his future could possibly be should be allow himself to spiral out of control. By refusing to accept his father he was in effect symbolically refusing to overcome the various issues that plagued him throughout his life.
His disdain over what his father hand become was to a certain extent a form of disassociation from him resolving his own issues.
Through symbolically linking his father as the source of all his problems and by refusing to accept him, Flynn in effect showed that he was running away from his own problems just as his father had run away from his own responsibilities.
Moving Forward
Toward the end of the book readers are introduced to the following passage which showcases how the author has moved on from the issues which plagued him in the past.
“That book somehow fell to me, the son, to write. My father’s uncredited, noncompliant ghostwriter. Not enough to be stuck with his body, to be stuck with his name, but to become his secretary, his handmaid, caught up in folly, a doomed project, to write about a book that doesn’t, that didn’t ever, that may not even , exist”. (Flynn, 1 â 357)
While the tone of the passage may seem negative, it is anything but that. From this passage alone it is implied that everything that has been written so far is dedicated to the author’s father in that the wonderful memoir he has written is in a way a collaborative work that spans the years.
It is an expression of how the author has moved forward from anger, resentment, hatred and indifference to caring, accepting and truly loving his father once more. It portrays how he has overcome his inner demons, developed his own positive outlook on the world and has taken all the negative things that have happened to him into a learning experience that enables him to continue to move forward with his life.
As I close this examination of the book I have to mention that though the memoir focused on several truly painful and heart rending moments of the author’s life, there was little in the way of emotional outpouring originating from the text.
Instead of creating passages that were dripping with emotion, the author instead portrayed a variety of scenarios, instances and points of view that illicit emotional responses from readers instead of telling them of how he felt at the time.
By doing so he created a method by which people derived intellectual value from the events and how they were depicted rather than the author stating over and over again on how depressed he was (Paramenter, 1).
This style, I believe, was an intentional aspect of how the author chose to depict this story since for him this memoir is a form of closure and, as such, to wallow in self-depression through emotional writing goes against the inherent theme of closure which pervades this memoir.
As such, the writing style which is seemingly like a person from the outside looking in is one that shows little emotional response however is intentional so as to show that the author, through this memoir, has finally come to terms with all that has happened to him in the past and has moved on (SR, 1).
Works Cited
Flynn, Nick. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir . New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1-357. Print.
Paramenter, Chad. “Nick Flynn and âThe Ticking Is the Bombâ.” the Paris Review. the Paris Review, 2010. Web.
SR. “Another Bullshit Night In Indiana: An Interview with Nick Flynn.” Sycamore Review. Sycamore Review, 2006. Web.