STAY: THREADS, CONVERSATIONS, COLLABORATIONS BY NICK FLYNN
Nick Flynn is, among many other things, a collagist. It should be no surprise then that his latest book is a collage of sorts— a selection of his poetry, memoir excerpts, interviews, essays, photographs, collaborations, and, yes, collages— from the last twenty or so years. In Stay, the reader gets as close as one possibly can to Flynn’s goal of “trying to know what [is] essentially unknowable— what it is like to be someone else.” When his words aren’t enough, he works in short pieces by other artist-friends such as Josh Neufeld’s comics and Zoe Leonard’s photographs.
Flynn’s nonlinear narrative spans the themes of family, time, torture, death, birth, race, capitalism, becoming, war, and creation. The front half of the book gives the reader all the necessary information to begin to understand Flynn— his relationship to his mother, his father, his childhood, and his growing up. The sections that come after are the glue of the book, particularly “Ark/Hive.” Here, the tension running through the book is distilled:
…everything
is something else. This is the story
we’ve been telling ourselves
since we could speak. Possess
nothing, Francis says. Do good
everywhere. No one believes
those wings will lift you.
As a disclaimer, I have been meaning for years to (but have not) read Flynn’s work before Stay. Perhaps people more familiar with his writings would find this rehashing of his prior works redundant, but I doubt it. Personally, this book came to me when I needed it and detangled some of the loose threads balled up in my mind. This book is a self-portrait, a collaboration, and a piece of art. This book is essential.
—Review by Ali Hintz
