The Ticking is the Bomb

(Paperback, Main)

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In 2007, during the months before Flynn's daughter is born, his growing outrage and obsession with torture - exacerbated by the Abu Ghraib photos - leads him to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in the photographs. Haunted by a history of addiction, a relationship with an unsteady father and a longing to connect with his mother who committed suicide, this memoir artfully interweaves passages from Flynn's childhood, his romantic relationships with women and his questioning of terror, torture and political crimes - unimaginable horrors, but part of humanity all the same.

The time bomb of the title becomes a vehicle for exploring the fears and joys of becoming a father. Here is a dazzling, inventive memoir of profound self-discovery - of being lost and found, of painful family memories and losses, and of the compulsion to run from love, but the ability to embrace it.

Reviews

A gleaming, brutal, beautiful book. As I read it, I kept thinking of all the people I wanted to give it to. -- Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
Another Nick Flynn book means another marvel. The Ticking is the Bomb is bold and brave and the prose will blow you away, as well his insights on love and being. Behold. -- Anthony Swafford, author of Exit A

Author Bio

Nick Flynn is the author of two collections of poetry, Blind Huber and Some Ether. In another life he worked as an electrician, a ship's captain, and as an educator in New York City public schools. His words have appeared over the years in The New Yorker, The Nation, Fence, The New York Times Book Review and The Paris Review. One semester a year he teaches at the University of Houston, and then he spends the rest of the year elsewhere.