A MEMOIR
Finished books available
RIGHTS SOLD
US: PublicAffairs, June 2006
UK: Atlantic Books, January 2007
Canada: Penguin, May 2006
Mainland China: Shanghai Interzone Books, July 2007
Taiwan: JC Culture and Publishing
German language: Rowohlt Verlag
About the author
Read an excerpt
"The book is a way to see life through another lens, an invitation to take a journey that no reader should refuse." PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review
"Ryan Knighton's account of his growing disability is exceptional. By his own admission, Cockeyed gleefully plays up the slapstick of his situation but it's still an eye-opening account, so to speak." GQ, UK
"Ultimately, what makes this wonderfully readable memoir different from others of its ilk is that the author emerges as someone you'd really like to hang out with. He's funny, imaginative, and possessed of a lightly-worn learning that makes his cultural and literary references (from Oedipus's desire for blindness to an imagined Platonic dialogue on IKEA), well-judged and enlightening. But best of all, Cockeyed is an unparalleled user's guide to blindness that will benefit the sighted as much as the sightless." THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, UK
"Cockeyed is unexpectedly and frequently funny: Knighton maintains a certain gallows humour about his condition, and his total lack of self pity makes this book an elightening and enjoyable read." VOGUE, UK
"Ryan Knighton's account of encroaching blindness is... unusual in that it's not in the least bit miserable.... It's a remarkable performance both by him and for the reader too the blind leading the sighted." THE FIRST POST, UK
"To call Ryan Knighton just another one of those dime-a-dozen 'blind Canadian punk writers' is to do him a disservice. He's much more than that. Knighton is a man with a bad, bad attitude. But he's also got the guts and the style to back it up. That he can’t see is irrelevant. In this age of the Professional Victim, with so many authors asking readers to shed a heartfelt tear over their bad mommies and stubbed toes, here comes Knighton with a white cane, a wicked smile and a howling soundtrack, who’s written a book in which he laughs at himself, laughs at the world, sheds the occasional tear, and rolls with it. Sure it’s a tragedy—but that’s why you’ll be laughing, too, see?" JIM KNIPFEL, author of Slackjaw and Ruining it for Everybody
"This book pulsates with honesty.... Cockeyed is a wonderful achievement, and Ryan Knighton is one of those writers to add to the must-read list." VANCOUVER SUN
"So many memoirs have been published in recent years that distinguishing among them has become as much of a challenge as reading them. Happily, Ryan Knighton's autobiography will not be confused with any neighbors in nonfiction. Cockeyed provides an unexpectedly wry view of a life that twisted into the extraordinary." THE BOSTON GLOBE
"Cockeyed is engaging and irreverent. Knighton is brave, witty and shameless. Learning to count one's blessings need not always be a sombre lesson Knighton makes it a pleasure." THE FINANCIAL TIMES, UK
"[A] boisterous, comical and poignant memoir..." OTTAWA CITIZEN
"Cockeyed is a fun summer read that just happens to be about a blind dude. That experience might embitter some, but in Cockeyed, Knighton's dark side has been Febrezed." NOW MAGAZINE
"Knighton sees the world in tiny circles. He writes his memoir in this way, too. The whole becomes a powerful read." CLEVELAND.COM
"Talent shines on every page of this feisty, bittersweet memoir.... Knighton explores the fascinating linguistics of blindness, but it's his penchant for disdaining pity and shame that makes this such a compelling, sturdy read." ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"With this memoir [Knighton] offers sighted people a broad look into his life and his process. He has a gift for making readers laugh, cry, and see themselves at different angles within the storya remarkable feat." THE KELOWNA DAILY COURIER
"Knighton's progress toward understanding and acceptance of his disability makes for a highly readable, and often darkly funny, account." RENO NEWS
"[Knighton] has written a pithy, moving, and delightfully snarky memoir that chronicles the ups and downs of his 15-year relationship with blindness...both deeply refreshing and highly venerable. A haunting and powerful debut from a truly gifted writer." BOOKREPORTER.COM
"...if you're blessed with a decent sense of humour, you can do something with the unavoidable slapstick subplot that blindness forces on your life. Knighton's good at this. He's not afraid of the dark." MONTREAL MIRROR
"Blindness isn't normally something to laugh about. But Ryan Knighton's memoir, appropriately titled Cockeyed, is one of those rare exceptions where it's okay. The author encourages it." DALLAS MORNING NEWS
"Cockeyed is both tragic and funny, with not an ounce of self-pity." IRISH EXAMINER
"Many people would fail to find the humour in going blind. But that's just what Ryan Knighton manages to do in his irreverent and moving memoir, Cockeyed." PORTLAND TRIBUNE
"This is what it's like to grow up, screw up your job, crash Dad's car, pick up the wrong chick at a punk bar, and strain your love life to the limit. But this time, there's a good excuse: you can't see. No seriously, dude: you're blind." DON McKELLAR, actor, screenwriter, director
"The blind see things the rest of us can'tand they're way more fun to shop with at IKEA. Ryan Knighton's memoir of losing his vision is smart, insightful, engaging, and funny." MARNI JACKSON, author of Pain: The Fifth Vital Sign
"[Knighton] takes readers into a world where even the simplest activities become a challenge." FFWD, Calgary's News & Entertainment Weekly
"A cool, irreverent and caustic read." EVE MAGAZINE
"[T]here's no trace of self-pity in the clear injustice of his condition [A] fresh, youthful perspective on a tragic twist of fate." IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY
"With intense wit and personal reflection … [Knighton's] memoirs take readers on a tour of the everyday world revealing the world of the sighted in all its peculiarity." BROMLEY & BECKENHAM TIMES, UK
In this penetrating, hysterical memoir, which ricochets between meditation and the blackest of comedy, Knighton sets out to surprise readers and to expand the potential of the memoir form itself. Here, blindness is more than a topic, and more than his own story. He transforms his disability quite literally into a radical point of view, one through which the world of the sighted is ultimately revealed in all its phenomenal peculiarity. Like Jose Saramago's novel Blindness, Cockeyed uses disability to provide a window onto the human condition.
Knighton is a published poet, fiction write, and journalist. Not many other authors combine punk rock, tattoos, and English professorship. It's a combination that promises both sharp—and sharply barbed—prose. Writing at the final stages of a fourteen-year descent into blindness, he captures the urgent immediacy of his experience, reporting from the front lines. Knighton takes readers to South Korea, where he taught English to five-year-olds and struggled to hide his blindness for six months; to the salt mines of Poland, where Knighton first learned how people can make him disappear; and to an island retreat for the blind, where Knighton confronted his own fear of blind people.Readers of all ages and interests will find it hard to put down this wild ride around the world with a blind guide at the wheel.
(Photo: Robert Sherrin)
On his eighteenth birthday, Ryan Knighton was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a congenital disease marked by a progressive pathology of night-blindness, tunnel vision, and, eventually, total blindness. In 1995 he completed a BA (Hons) in English at Simon Fraser University and then, after teaching in South Korea for a year, began his MA, again at SFU, completing it in 1998. That same year, at the age of twenty-five, he was hired by Capilano College's English Department to teach contemporary literature, pop-culture, rhetoric, and creative writing. Knighton has also traveled across Canada to give public readings and lectures. Ryan Knighton is in the last stage before total blindness.
