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BookBrowse Reviews Cockeyed: An irreverent, tragicomic, politically incorrect, astoundingly articulate memoir about going blind – and growing up.

Cockeyed
A Memoir
by Ryan Knighton
Paperback, Jun 2007,
288 pages.
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From the book jacket: On his 18th birthday, Ryan Knighton was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), a congenital, progressive disease marked by night-blindness, tunnel vision and, eventually, total blindness. In this penetrating, nervy memoir, which ricochets between meditation and black comedy, Knighton tells the story of his fifteen-year descent into blindness while incidentally revealing the world of the sighted in all its phenomenal peculiarity. Knighton learns to drive while unseeing; has his first significant relationship—with a deaf woman; navigates the punk rock scene and men's washrooms; learns to use a cane; and tries to pass for seeing while teaching English to children in Korea. Stumbling literally and emotionally into darkness, into love, into couch-shopping at Ikea, into...
Beyond the Book
Ryan Knighton teaches contemporary literature and creative writing at Capilano College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  He's the author of two books of poetry, Swing in The Hollow (2002)  and Two Bits (2007), and co-author of a collection of short fiction (Cars, 2002); he has also published widely as a journalist and essayist, and has produced, written and performed radio monologues and documentaries about blindness for the CBC.

He was born in 1972, in British Columbia, Canada and in 1995 completed a BA Honours in English at Simon Fraser...
This review was originally published in August 2006, and has been updated for the June 2007 paperback release. Click here to go to this issue.
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