Summary: Another Bullshit Night In Suck City

Why do people write memoirs? The most obvious answer is that to share their unique journey of life with others. However, it goes far beyond that. By writing memoirs, The writers can also reveal things in their life that they never notice before, some reminisces that become meaningful after time went by, and some decisions that were made subconsciously but profound. The memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City written by Nick Flynn tells Flynn’s arduous journey through life, having a father who never shows up and a mother who committed suicide during his time in college. The memoir consists of many fragmented sections: some are about Nick’s father, Jonathan Flynn, and some are about Nick himself. “Why I Write” by Joan Didion and “This Is How

Flynn uses many little fragment stories to build up the whole story between himself and his father, and each of them serves as a puzzle piece to their relationship and their life, just as how Flynn himself get to know his father. Every section is a scene, or an image, which is what Didion emphasizes. Using as much sense as possible, Flynn gives special texture to the memoir, making every scene sensible and realistic to readers. When describing the homeless shelter, Flynn writes “inside the shelter the tension is inescapable – the walls exude cigarette smoke and anxiety. The air is thick, stale, dreamy, though barely masking the overpowering smell of stale sweat.” (30) When talking about the absence of fathers, Flynn builds many images of irresponsible fathers rather than talk about the idea: “Even if around, most disappear all day, to jobs their children only slightly understand. Gone to office, gone to shop, men in suits hiding behind closed doors, yelling into phones, men in overalls, reading pornography in pickup trucks…The carpenter. The electrician. They drive to strangers’ houses, a woman in a robe answers the door, they sit at the table about the day ahead.” (23) Flynn is deft at explaining abstract ideas by imaginary scenes. He never explicitly tells his feeling towards his father, but he hides it in the fictitious episodes. In the section “Two Hundred

This honesty comes from its unsentimental tone, articulate voice, and blunt wording. Although it is Flynn’s memoir, the way Flynn writes the story seems like Flynn is telling a stranger’s story. He doesn’t add any personal emotions into it, just merely sharing some experiences without any self-pity. The wording is intense and blunt. In “Ulysses,” Flynn writes “All my life my father had been manifest as an absence, a nonpresence, a name without a body” (24). This sentence delivers a depressing and pessimistic mood, using three different descriptions portray his father’s figure in Flynn’s life, and each of them reinforces themselves. The sentences are short and to the point, and some sentences are even fragmented. “Many fathers are gone. Some leave, some are left,” Flynn writes. (23) This sentence style shows the author’s thinking process at the moment, rather than tells a story. Besides fragmented sentences, sections are also unchronological and seem irrelative to each other, attracting readers to read