Book #2 of this year's book plan, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn, was a bit of a stretch for me. I'm not a non-fiction reader. I heard about Flynn's book because he was a mentor in last year's Mentor Series at the Loft in Minneapolis. The title caught my interest, but I didn't buy it because it was a memoir...non fiction.
I decided to buy it earlier this year anyway, and I'm so glad that I did. Flynn's book is beautiful, in spite of the content which centers around filth, loss, addiction, and pain. His words, poetic even though the format isn't poetry, are the essence of what writing should be. His book teaches life lessons, real while surreal, and at the end my first thought was "I can't believe it all really happened." But of course I do believe it. I believe every single word.
I think you have to be of a certain age to read and appreciate this book. You need to have been out in the world, to have traveled, to desire to see and know the experiences of people outside your circle.
It should also be required reading for those fuckers who watch and participate in the making of those "bum fights" videos. Flynn's book shows that the homeless, for all of their drawbacks, are people. They are fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers. They have parents. They are human beings who have, for whatever reason, ended up on the street. Flynn doesn't glamorize homelessness, nor does he berate it. He doesn't dress it up or mask it, he presents it as it is. It is truly a one of a kind book.
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