Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

In my experience, whatever happens clings to us like barnacles on the hull of a ship, slowling us slightly, both uglyfying and giving us texture. You can scrape all you want, you can, if you have money, hire someone else to scrape, but barnacles will come back, or at least leave a blemish on the steel.

This is a quote from a brief question and answer section in the back of Nick Flynn’s book Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, a memoir that reads like a novel that I had the pleasure of reading.


With an economic yet commanding prose which fills in the blanks of a loose narrative, this book is a must read for any one who has dealt with alcoholism, identity, families, society, homelessness, and the general malaise of living in the modern age. In short, this book is for everyone. Channeling such great loser poet voices like Charles Bukwoski and Elliot Smith, Flynn allows us into enter the “machine in his head,” and deal with our own encounters with dysfunctionalality.