REVIEW: ‘This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire’ by Nick Flynn
Image courtesy of W.W. Norton / Provided by official site.
Nick Flynn’s new lyrical memoir, This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire, is a poignant and introspective look at how a boy’s childhood can inform the events and relationships of his adult life. The author relays many important chapters in his upbringing, including the title sequence, when his mother is believed to have set fire to his childhood home. The book tries to deconstruct this pivotal event by finely focusing on Flynn’s mother, including her constant working to keep food on the table, her relationships with a couple men, and how he fared walking around and exploring in his seaside Massachusetts town.
Interspersed with these recollections are Flynn’s more recent memories: being married (to a famous person, in fact), becoming a father and also having an affair that disrupted his family’s life. He brings the past and present together in thoughtful ways, often using poetic language and interior monologues to tap into his feelings and thoughts, almost as if he’s commenting in the third person on a character named Nick Flynn. He also re-creates the inner-dialogue of other characters, which is a unique approach to a memoir, blending a device typically found in fiction writing with this nonfiction tale.
The language is beautiful, even when the events being described are unsettling and deeply personal (for a further exploration of Flynn’s life check out his Another Bullshit Night in Suck City memoir). These carefully chosen words outline certain themes and characters that reemerge throughout the fabric of the narrative, including an old man who lived near Flynn and the author’s youthful ambition to sneak a peak into the neighbor’s historic house. There are wonderful anecdotes about Flynn as an adult bringing his own child back to his hometown, back to where it all started. There’s even one chapter focused on Flynn knocking on the door of his childhood home (it still stands) and asking to see his old bedroom. The transitions between the time periods are always taken care of with thoughtfulness, and the relatively short chapters help keep everything moving along.
As the story unfolds — almost in an abstract way, as if the memories are popping into Flynn’s mind as he writes them — there are deeper realizations that come to the forefront. One deals with his mother’s need for money and the strong possibility that she lit the fire that caused the destruction. It appears that to this day Flynn still wrestles with the difficult reality of suspecting his mother started the blaze while he was still sleeping in the house and within harm’s way.
The several pages detailing Flynn’s affair are surprising to read because they offer a thorough recounting, mostly describing his motivations for starting the relationship and the fallout when it became known to his wife. It’s arguably the most personal section of the story.
Although there are interesting and revealing episodes from his adulthood, the takeaway that haunts the reader, long after the final period, is that same image that has haunted Flynn for so many years: a woman, a choice, a fire.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire by Nick Flynn. W.W. Norton & Company. 288 pages. $26. Click here for more information.
