Award-winning poet/author Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) uses his daughter's imminent birth as a springboard to examine personal and political shakiness. Flynn jumps back and forth in covering his rocky childhood (his parents: a distraught, hard-living single mother; an ex-con, mentally wrecked father who was largely absent from Flynn's childhood), his struggles with women and sobriety, and adjusting to his daughter's arrival. Throughout this swirl of heartache and introspection, Flynn becomes obsessed with torture and America's acceptance of it after the infamous photos from Abu Ghraib are released. It's clear that Flynn is lost in his own life, and that he needs to find himself, or at least some stability, not just for his daughter's benefit but for his own. The accompanying narrative structure may isolate those who prefer a more straight-ahead style—the poetic interludes and scattered focus are sometimes more distracting than artistic—but Flynn's life is so volcanic and his writing style so kinetic and punchy that others will be drawn into this gripping personal narrative. (Jan.)
Bestselling author Nick Flynn delivers a dazzling, searing, and inventive memoir about becoming a father in the age of terror.
In 2007, as Flynn awaits his daughter's birth, the release of the Abu Ghraib photographs exacerbates his already growing outrage and obsession with torture, leading him on a journey to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in the photos. A memoir of profound self-discovery, Flynn's book artfully interweaves passages from his childhood, his relationships with women, and his history of addiction into his dark questioning of terror, torture, and the political crimes we can neither see nor understand in post-9/11 American life. The time bomb of the title becomes an unlikely metaphor and vehicle for exploring the fears and joys of becoming a father as Flynn examines the need to run from love and the need to embrace it again.
Bestselling author Nick Flynn delivers a dazzling, searing, and inventive memoir about becoming a father in the age of terror.
In 2007, as Flynn awaits his daughter's birth, the release of the Abu Ghraib photographs exacerbates his already growing outrage and obsession with torture, leading him on a journey to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in the photos. A memoir of profound self-discovery, Flynn's book artfully interweaves passages from his childhood, his relationships with women, and his history of addiction into his dark questioning of terror, torture, and the political crimes we can neither see nor understand in post-9/11 American life. The time bomb of the title becomes an unlikely metaphor and vehicle for exploring the fears and joys of becoming a father as Flynn examines the need to run from love and the need to embrace it again.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940169748710 |
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Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
Publication date: | 01/18/2010 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |