Cockeyed

by Ryan Knighton

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586484400
• ISBN13: 9781586484408
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

His wit and humor match his writing talent

Of course this book is inspirational, but to view this memoir as another tale of overcoming obstacles is selling it short. If you take away the subject matter, and judge the writing itself--you'll find an extraordinarily well-written, incredibly witty, and extremely funny book from a writer that has a gift for story telling. Ryan Knighton's intelligence leaps off the page and engages the reader in thought-provoking discussions. He managed to make me laugh out loud as well as cry, and to effectively do both is no easy task. His introspection and fresh, intelligent take on blindness and its effect on his life (and those around him) is insightful and profound. I look forward to reading his next book, regardless of the topic, because I so enjoyed his writing style. His students are learning from a master.

Very insightful biography

One of the few books that I read from cover to cover just finished it today. I wanted to know exactly what was going on in Ryan's life and how he coped with this new reality. It will be unfair to think it just applies to blindness. No it applies to all shortcomings we have. We deny, we joke, we think subconsciously it will go away, but no, it does not. I am sighted, but I felt connected with Ryan's struggles, discoveries and humor. Yes, despite miseries, despite pains, despite whatever - we must and we can smile and make fun. Ryan you are a wonderful writer and a great observer. You have a rare gift, insight.

Funny and insightful.

Wow. I ate this book up in one sitting. Very powerful, and written in an extremely accessible way. Knighton had me by turns laughing hysterically, thinking sad thoughts, and reveling in his attention to detail. He may feel that as his eyesight shrinks, he is losing his feel for what is going on in the world, but as long as he can produce such great insight with such humor, he'll be on my "must read" list. No pressure, Mr. Knighton, but I'm looking forward to your next book!

A haunting and powerful debut from a truly gifted writer

At the age of 18, Ryan Knighton was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), a congenital, progressive illness that begins with diminished night vision and degenerates into total loss of vision. Currently, he has access to only 1% of his eyesight. Yet, instead of wallowing in his predicament, he has written a pithy, moving and delightfully snarky memoir that chronicles the ups and downs of his 15-year relationship with blindness. Despite the sober truth of Knighton's story and the somber mood that one might expect to accompany its telling, there are many sections in COCKEYED that are immensely funny and lighthearted. His recollections of pre-diagnosis adolescence are priceless and exactly the types of experiences you'd imagine a gawky teenage kid to have --- the time he almost killed his co-worker while driving a forklift; the time he wrecked his dad's car by getting it stuck on top of a pile of boulders; the time he (literally) lost his pants while at a punk rock club --- all are incidents worthy of a smile and a knowing grin, if you ignore the reason why they occurred in the first place. COCKEYED is anything but excessively dramatic, and Knighton certainly pays tribute to how funny these events must have seemed at the time from an outside perspective. On the flipside, COCKEYED's darker moments are full of bleary isolationism, loss and self-deprecation. Yet, Knighton never seems to despair when reliving them, but instead pushes on as if talking about it might somehow redeem him and help others who might suffer similar fates. During the first few years following his diagnosis, he tried to outsmart his failing eyesight and it is painful to read about him bumbling about (again, literally), refusing his disease. It is only after he barely avoided getting hit by an oncoming car that he finally recognized the severity of his condition. This realization and the bleak period that followed is one of the hardest scenes to digest in the book because it is the first time we see him face the permanence of his disease and finally understand that he must learn to live with its consequences. In another incredibly moving and painfully honest chapter entitled "Missing," Knighton talks about his younger brother Rory's sudden and seemingly accidental death from a morphine overdose (his new girlfriend slipped him the pills). The way he deals with this loss independently of and in relation to his blindness is so raw, it's almost beautiful: "I know now that Rory's death made me a different man and a different blind man...More than anything, his death forced me to make room for a world that didn't revolve around my blindness...I thought I knew loss, but what did I know? Little. That's why, when we laid Rory to rest, I tried to put something to rest in me, too. That's what I owe him and me." The ever-introspective Knighton clearly has a way with words, even when describing the gravest of circumstances. In spite of all the hardship, never mind his lack of sight, it

A Strong Story of Going Blind

Eighteen, just out of highschool, beginning to discover girls. A time when your whole life beckons you forward. The world is yours to conquer. Eighteen, his age when the doctor told him that he had a congenital, progressive disease that would make him totally blind in a few years. While this is a story of the descent into blindness, it isn't the maudlin, sad story that you might expect. Knighton leaves no doubt in your mind that this is the life he would prefer, but he also leaves you with the understanding that his life isn't so bad. The hardest part, I believe, was the time of the growing blindness. When do you admit that you have a problem so severe that you need a white cane? As he says, he didn't get the manual on going blind. His stories of asking for things like directions to the men's room and being told 'over there,' make you understand better than any description of what he has to go through. It is hard to put this book down. Kingman is blind, but he's also smart with a wicked sense of humor.