PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Award-winning poet/author Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City) uses his
daughter’s immanent 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 struggle 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.