by Cheston Knapp
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Just released: February 6, 2018
Publisher: Scribner
Genre: Essays, Memoir
Hardback: 320
Rating: 5
Zombie sighting:
Imitating another person, plagiarizing someone else's way of being, caving to some societal pressure, conforming—these are new cardinal sins, the penance for which is a zombified essence, a form of living death.
Far From Me, VIII, page 97
First sentence(s):
Bell time for the Keizer Klash was 7:30 p.m., sharp, and Scott and I had arrived early according to plan, after the hour drive south from Portland.
Daring and wise, hilarious and tender, Cheston Knapp’s exhilarating collection of seven linked essays, Up Up, Down Down, tackles the Big Questions through seemingly unlikely avenues. In his dexterous hands, an examination of a local professional wrestling promotion becomes a meditation on pain and his relationship with his father. A profile of UFO enthusiasts ends up probing his history in the church and, more broadly, the nature and limits of faith itself. Attending an adult skateboarding camp launches him into a virtuosic analysis of nostalgia. And the shocking murder of a neighbor expands into an interrogation of our culture’s prevailing ideas about community and the way we tell the stories of our lives. Even more remarkable, perhaps, is the way he manages to find humanity in a damp basement full of frat boys.
Taken together, the essays in Up Up, Down Down amount to a chronicle of Knapp’s coming-of-age, a young man’s journey into adulthood, late-onset as it might appear. He presents us with formative experiences from his childhood to marriage that echo throughout the collection, and ultimately tilts at what may be the Biggest Q of them all: what are the hazards of becoming who you are?
PeekAbook: page 22 with cover shots that i did for the #luckofthebookish instagram challenge
My two-bits:
I do not usually read essay collections, but the premise for this caught my attention. And, after reading the first one I was hooked.
It's a dude's perspective during contemporary times with humorous yet serious observations throughout.
