THIS IS THE NIGHT OUR HOUSE WILL CATCH FIRE

 This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire, Nick Flynn, W W Norton & Co, 2020, 275 pp

The other day when I reviewed The Good Family Fitzgerald, I mentioned that I intended to finish reading and reviewing the remaining 2020 selections of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club by the end of the year. I have finished reading the 5 books in this little challenge but with only two days left in December, I may find it even more challenging to fit in all the reviews. 

But first, a bit of a rant. I saw in the news recently that Bertlesmann, the international media conglomerate, who already owns Penguin Random House (itself already a conglomerate of all kinds of formerly independent publishing houses) is now going after Simon & Schuster. While we all realize that publishing is a business and thus must make money/profits, don't you think it feels like all these mergers into one mega corporation presents risks to the diversity of books that reach us? 

So I had the thought that the little indie publishers around the country and the world are going to have to take up the mantle that takes chances on new writers, on experimental writers, even genre writers, that have been choked out of mainstream publishing. I urge you to pay attention to the publishers of the books you read, the books that become bestsellers, have huge marketing budgets, etc, etc. If by chance you feel a sort of stifling sameness about some of these books, I want to point out that my subscription to The Nervous Breakdown Book Club has brought me many novels that are sometimes unusual, sometimes experimental but are almost always excellent reads by little known authors.

This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire is one of those books. It was the August pick, the fourth memoir by Nick Flynn and its publisher, W W Norton, is still privately owned. 

The style is what I would call experimental, short pieces arranged in such a way that brings together the traumatic events of the author's childhood, how he has coped with those events in both self-destructive and constructive ways, how he has figured out his adult relationships and how to live up to his responsibilities. 

The writing is full of contradictions: sadness and humor; insight and unawareness; real and imaginary memories. Because Flynn seems aware of these contradictions, I believed him.

The best parts for me were when he got into how he saw his environment as a kid. Those parts are excellent renditions of how kids try to make sense of what the adults around them are doing.

I also listened to his interview on the Otherppl podcast where I learned about his writing process and found useful ideas and approaches to writing memoir. Flynn teaches writing and it was almost like taking a class from him. If any of you are attempting that tricky descent into your past, I recommend both the book and the interview.

I truly admire people who attempt to raise their consciousness. To me, that is the most important task in life and is the road to developing our potentials as human beings.