the good men project

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THE GOOD MEN PROJECT

NICK FLYNN talks with Tom Matlack, 8 jan 2010

Nick Flynn is a poet and the author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City , a

memoir about his relationship with his estranged, alcoholic and homeless father.His latest book, The Ticking is the Bomb , is a memoir that interweaves reflectionson his childhood, his relationship with his father, his motherʼs suicide, theimpending birth of his daughter, and his outrage and obsession with the torturedepicted in the photos from Abu Ghraib.

Good Men Project cofounder Tom Matlack spoke with Flynn last week about The Ticking is the Bomb and about fatherhood. Matlack also invited Flynn to take TheGood Men Projectʼs Manhood Quiz.

Tom Matlack: One of the things I really love The Ticking is the Bomb is the way

you write about the way we all get lost. I think many of us men are at acrossroads. You realize this the morning you get up and look in the mirror anddonʼt recognize who you are.

Nick Flynn: I think itʼs hard to tell when you are actually lost. Itʼs hard toremember that itʼs actually a common experience—and maybe just a humanexperience, and almost a necessary experience—to get lost, and not to assumethat oneʼs lifeʼs going to go in some sort of clear trajectory where everything ʼsrecognizable. I just donʼt think thatʼs realistic.

But it also can be very dark and very troubling. Some people don ʼt get out of it

either. For some people thatʼs the end of the road. I

ʼve had a few of theseexperiences in my life. Itʼs the nature of life. Thereʼs some element of suffering in

life. It comes to all of us. And itʼs almost impossible to know how to navigate it

until youʼre in it.

It does feel a lot like the things I did in Boy Scouts. They drop you in the woods,and you have to survive for the weekend, with a knife and a match and a tarp orsomething. Thereʼs a reason that the Boy Scouts do that. Itʼs a metaphor forwhatʼs going to happen at other points in your life—how are you going to figure

your way out of this thing? And hopefully you figure out somewhat healthy waysout of these things. The thing that led you into there might not have been that

healthy. Or it might just have been necessary. It could just be circumstantial.Certainly life blindsides you.

TM: You write about the impact of realizing that you were going to be a father.

How do you view fatherhood as potentially transformational?

NF: It wasnʼt that I suddenly realized I was going to be a father. It was a choice. Itwas actually a very active choice. But the choice was something that had to be



navigated. I had to step up to make that choice. The pregnancy was no surprise.And yet even within this sort of conscious decision, there was a lot of uncertainty.

There was a lot of wondering if I was actually up for this moment, that I would beable to show up for it, that Iʼd be able to be a father. That was really abstract.

My wife [actress Lili Taylor] didnʼt put any pressure on me any way. She was very

clear. She was like, “This is what I want to do, this is the time for me to do it, andIʼd like to do it with you. If youʼre not ready to do, weʼll move on.” And it became

very clear that it was really my choice. It was remarkably clear and simple thatwhatever I have to struggle with is what I have to struggle with. And it was notabout making her happy or saving her. It was really very clear that she wouldprefer that we did it together.

I realized I hadnʼt really approached our relationship in that way before. It always

felt like there was some sort of burden of responsibility on me to take care ofwomen or to save them, that there could be some crisis if I wasnʼt there, some

very serious consequences. And this didnʼt seem that way at all. It seemed clearthat I just had to wrestle with whatever was inside me and it gave it room to bedragged out into the open.

TM: So in terms of your impending fatherhood and your relationship with your

own father and then your awareness of torture, how did all of that get stirred up inyour mind?

NF: The book started as a meditation on the Abu Ghraib photographs. I sort ofhad done all the research and written a draft of a book. But I sensed that I hadnʼtquite followed it deep enough. Since this isnʼt journalism, itʼs not just about what

happened; itʼs really about why this thing that happened is affecting me. Thatʼswhat a memoir is: an individualʼs interpretation of events, rather than just whathappened.

When I started looking into why these images snagged so deeply in mysubconscious, I followed those threads back, and they led back to stuff I had

touched on in the first memoir—my fatherʼs time in prison, my motherʼs suicide—but they went more deeply into them. In my father ʼs case, he had been tortured infederal prison; heʼd been experimented on. And he would tell this story quiteoften. He was sleep-deprived, had been put in isolation and sexually humiliated.And as I was writing the book, I started realizing that these were the things that

also were talked about at Abu Ghraib.

One of the books I read was by the historian Alfred McCoy. It details the CIA ʼsinvolvement in developing the torture techniques we saw at Abu Ghraib. Theyhad a 50-year program to develop those techniques. McCoy talks about how thefederal prisons had been the site of early experimentation of these torturetechniques. And some of those prisons were prisons that my father was in. So



his stories suddenly took on this other resonance.

TM: If itʼs OK with you, Iʼd like to ask you 10 questions that we call the ManhoodQuiz. The first question is who taught you about manhood?

NF: It would be a series of my motherʼ

s boyfriends when I was growing up. Therewere about 10 different boyfriends, and each sort of taught me a little piece of it.So itʼs very much a mosaic of 10 different guys—and I actually feel fondly aboutnearly all of them. They all have contributed some piece to the puzzle.

TM: The second question is how has romantic love shaped you as a man?

NF: I think that whole idea of romantic love was probably almost too strong aninfluence early on—getting caught up in the lyrics of pop songs or something andtrying to figure out what that meant. I think that can separate one from havingactual genuine interactions. And that also brought some sort of a competition with

other men over women, which seems very unhealthy in retrospect.

TM: What two words would you use to describe your dad?

NF: Vodka and charm.

TM: How are you most unlike your father?

NF: Well, heʼs pure id. And he doesnʼt have any sort of container for that. Iʼm

probably the exact same. Iʼm no different from him. Itʼs just that Iʼve figured outhow to keep it in a container a little bit more.

TM: From which of your mistakes did you learn the most?

NF: I think attempting to maintain more than one relationship at a time. Theenergy it takes is really not worth it. And the energy and the attention it takesaway from any one relationship.

TM: This is a two-part question. What word would the women in your life use todescribe you, and do you believe itʼs accurate?

NF: Iʼm always reluctant to put words in anyone elseʼs mouth, but itʼs something Ireally do often ask, like what people feel about how theyʼve been portrayed in my

book.

TM: How about your wife? What does your wife say about you?

NF: Oh, sheʼs very supportive. I get good feedback from her. We ʼre doing well.So whatever the word would be—I hate to give her a word—but itʼd be on thepositive end of the spectrum.



TM: My wifeʼs word is narcissistic, and itʼs accurate.

NF: There are darker moments when I feel like Iʼm not quite living up to mypotential, but for the most part I do take in what she says, so I ʼll say itʼs accurate.

TM: What dad in your life do you really admire for his parenting skills?

NF: For years before I became a father I would try to spend as much time as Icould with my friends who were parents and their kids. And I was reallyimpressed. They all sort of managed to do it, and do it gracefully. I felt like therewas something about this generation, that they had learned something from the

previous generation about showing up and being really present as fathers. And italso made me imagine that I could maybe do it. And it felt like it was really justabout showing up and being present for it. I donʼt mean to disparage my father inany sense, but those were things that he was not able to do.

TM: I have three kids. My experience is that showing up is 90 percent of thebattle.

NF: So far thatʼs working. That simple formula seems to be working.

TM: How old is your daughter now?

NF: Sheʼs 2.

TM: The next question is have you been more successful in public or in yourprivate life?

NF: I feel comfortable with both at the moment. I have a book out right now, sosuddenly Iʼm in public life, or back into public life. Thatʼs the thing about a book:Youʼre in the public life for a little bit, and then you sort of go away for a little

while—several years in my case—and then you come out again, hopefully. Itwent well. The public thing went well this time, so I feel comfortable with both.

TM: When was the last time you cried?

NF: I can weep pretty easily. I can get tears in my eyes from a beautiful work ofart. I get pretty emotional around the time of my mother ʼs death, so I probablycried around then, just a month or so ago. [Flynnʼs mother committed suicide

when he was 22; heʼs now 49.]

TM: In December, right?

NF: Yeah, so there was a cry around that.

TM: How long has it been since your mom passed away?



NF: Itʼs a long time—over 20 years.

TM: The next question is what advice would you give teenage boys who aretrying to figure out what it means to be a good man?

NF: Thereʼ

s this sort of male energy that we have that can seem very destructive.But it doesnʼt have to be. It actually can be a very positive force. A lot of the waysthe male energyʼs channeled in the society is in very negative ways: the violenceor pornography, thereʼs all sorts of sexism, and there are all sorts of ways thatenergy is manipulated. But itʼs actually a very beautiful thing, and to honor it forwhat it is and to try to use it in some positive way is the best we can do.

TM: And last but not least, whatʼs your most cherished guy ritual?

NF: Well, itʼs really about the baby right now. In the last two years Iʼve seenbasically every sunrise, which has been sort of amazing. At a certain point you ʼre

not sure how many more sunrises youʼre going to see. And then I

ʼve seen everyone since sheʼs been born. We get up together, and we have this sort of

meditation thing in the morning for two or three hours—until her mom gets up—

where weʼre just together, just in this really quiet time that I really cherish.

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