Slackjaw Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Slackjaw Book

Who would have thought a memoir about going blind and suffering from severe depression could be so funny? From the opening scene, when an uncle who has the same degenerative eye disease warns 12-year-old Jim, "You better start learning Braille now," Knipfel defies all the conventional responses to adversity. You can't help but laugh when a doctor "who had obviously been playing hooky when they were teaching sensitivity in medical school" tells a wailing woman who has just learned her son is dying, "Please sit down... [he] has a good two or three weeks yet." The hard-edged humor comes naturally to a guy who as a grad student formed a band called the Pain Amplifiers; we're not exactly surprised to learn that his column for an alternative newspaper prompted hate mail as well as fan letters. Knipfel's complete lack of self-pity conveys the particulars of failing vision with blunt immediacy (he wears a wide-brimmed hat so he'll feel impending lampposts before he knocks himself senseless against them). His zest for the world's absurdities makes this book an exhilarating guide to "the weirdness parade I have been marching in my whole life." --Wendy Smith Read More

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  • Product Description

    The acclaimed comic memoir by the popular New York Press columnist. ...

    "An extraordinary emotional ride. It is maniacally aglow with a born storyteller's gifts of observation and an amiably deranged sense of humor."-- TheThomas Pynchon

    "Knipfel may be blind, but his artistic vision is as stunning as a sunset over the Brooklyn Bridge....It's not like any of the other memoirs you're reading."-- Entertainment Weekly

    "Life hasn't been easy for Jim Knipfel. He's blind. He has an inoperable brain tumor. He's got a drinking problem. He's been in and out of mental hospitals. He's attempted suicide. But he's managed to keep his sense of humor..."-- Boston Herald

    "Funny, heroic, and yes, entertaining...remarkable elan and some wicked black humor."-- New York Times

    "Illuminating...Knipfel's memoirs focus on a time when his marriage was failing, his visual field was shrinking, and an inoperable tumor in his brain was giving him seizures and suicidal depression. While this may sound like the makings of a dreary and pitiful tale of woe, it is anything but. Knipfel's bizarre antics...provoke laughter, not tears...sharp and wickedly funny."-- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

    "A vision of brave and astonishing impact."-- Mirabella

    "A book that can only be called inspirational...he never loses his appreciation for the basic absurdity of life."-- Newsday

    "A modern Odyssey."-- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

    "For a guy who has attempted suicide several times, he sure is funny."-- Chicago Sun-Times

  • 0425173305
  • 9780425173305
  • Jim Knipfel
  • 1 February 2000
  • Berkley Publishing Group
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 256
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