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PATRIOT LEDGER

THE TICKING IS THE BOMB / Nick Flynn interviewed by Chad Berndtson,18 jan 2010 

Scituate native Nick Flynnʼs “Another Bull---- Night In Suck City” was a disarmingmemoir – a dark story of his life intercut with that of his estranged father and theirnot-so-likely reunion at the Pine Street Inn homeless shelter in Boston.

The book was a best-seller and is being adapted into a movie, scripted by Paul

Weitz (“About a Boy”). It was lauded for being dark and dynamic as it took onalcoholism and homelessness. Flynn gets even more ambitious in the follow-up,“The Ticking Is the Bomb,” a book so heavy that it might knock even his ardentfans for a loop. Flynn will sign copies of the book at Berklee ʼs Cafe 939 onWednesday in Boston.

In “Ticking,” Flynn catches up on the ongoing story of his ex-con father, the writerand the drunk so memorably described in “Suck City.” Flynn plunges deeper,reflecting on addiction, past relationships and his mother ʼs suicide. The ultimatefocus is terror and torture: Why do people do these things and keep doing them?

Flynn said he was inspired partly by the accounts of abuse at Abu Ghraib Prisonin Iraq that began to surface in 2004. He eventually met several of the victims ofAbu Ghraib in Istanbul. “Ticking” ties together all of these strands – memoir,psychology, political crime, journalistic investigation.

“Iʼd been working on it for two to three years, and it really began with the releaseof the Abu Ghraib photographs,” Flynn said. “I didn ʼt know quite what it was going

to be.

“It was a daily writing thing I was doing, and many poems came out, and it was at

first just a series of observations: small, essay-like things. By 2007, it had takenform, and then this opportunity arose to meet some of the people in thephotographs.

Flynn said heʼd hoped to meet some of the former prisoners as early as 2006,

and had even flown to Greece having brokered a meeting, only to find no longer

had access. A year later – thanks to the efforts of human rights violation lawyersand other contacts with whom Flynn had become acquainted – the opportunityarose again, and he headed for Istanbul.

“I was far into the book by then, but at that point, part of me realized that I just

didnʼt have the full story,” he said. “The opportunity to meet people like this faceto face is rare for a writer. As soon as I was there (in Istanbul), for two weeks, itbecame clear this would be an eye-opening experience.”

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Flynn and an artist friend spent a great deal of time meeting with Abu Ghraibdetainees and hearing their stories, often in grueling, four-hour-plus sessions.

Flynnʼs no stranger to deriving a narrative from immersion – his experiencesworking at the Pine Street Inn were crucial to “Suck City” – but he still wasoverwhelmed from hearing about the experiences.

“I was getting the basics down of how they got arrested and what happened inthe prison, and I had photographs of them go to along with their ID tags,” he said.“It was all very documented, and I was sitting there with a translator, and the

stories they told were all sort of remarkably different, whether it was a Shi ʼite whogot turned in by a Sunni neighbor or something, or vice versa, everyone just hadthis grueling story about how he got arrested.”

Flynn says he returns to Boston every few months, often to see his father, whowent through another rough stretch in the years after “Suck City” was publishedbut is now in a long-term-care facility.

“What came out of writing the last book was that we developed a relationship that

was still problematic, but is important on some psychic level,” he said. “I certainlyhave a fulfilled level by seeing him. I took on this other level of responsibility to

transition him to the next phase of his life.”

His father suffered a mild stroke and lost some of his cognitive functions, so hewas no longer able to care for himself, Flynn said.

“I was worried that one day heʼd never make it back to his apartment. Itʼs not a

clear life for him, still, but this is the first time Iʼ

ve ever seen him outside ofalcohol. Itʼs a difficult thing to have a relative on the streets and feel helplessabout it. I have great empathy for those who go through that.”