Summary Of Another Bullshit Night In Suck City

In his novel, “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,” Nick Flynn uses a braided structure that weaves together three narratives: his childhood, his father’s earlier life, and the present of his adulthood. Flynn effectively uses this unorthodox structure to contribute to the story’s deeper meaning; the intertwining nature of our past and future selves.

Each narrative acts as a single strand that comes in and out of focus much like the braiding of hair. Momentarily illuminated then passed by as the next strand is brought into attention. This allows the reader to simultaneously observe Nick and Jonathan, comparing the similarities between the two. Jonathan faces innumerable struggles: homelessness, poverty, law evasion, loneliness, jail time,

It juxtaposes their two realities, further comparing the two and highlighting their similarities. Thus, enabling critical reflection on the dynamic events described. First person point of view not only acts as a tool to illustrate Nick’s life, but also serves as firsthand accounts of his complex internal struggle surrounding his relationship, or lack-there-of, with his long lost father. Nick feels somewhat guilty for his father’s life. He compares his relationship with his father to Dostoyevsky and an angry mob who killed him. “My role is to play the son, though I often feel like a mob of peasants” (133). Although Nick is Jonathan’s son and traditionally it is Jonathan who would take care of and watch out after Nick, Nick sometimes feels as sense of regret or negligence for not reaching out to his father to help him when he knows he is in a rough spot or living on the streets. “Sometimes 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” (11). Even though Nick worked so close with other homeless, he never tried to reach out to his father during his years of