[blparent] Ryan Knighton's Book

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

I did a little research on the Ryan Knighton book featured on This American Life.  If you were appalled before, check out these details from Amazon's page on "C'mon Papa" Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark."  This book is apparently not available to people in the United States--thank God.  It will be at some point, though.


Editorial Reviews
Review
NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Every new parent behaves like they're the first human to have given birth, and you don't always want to be seated beside them at a dinner party. What makes Knighton special is that, being blind, he's exquisitely attuned to every detail of the experience, every moment of joy and embarrassment, in a way that can make the merely sighted feel frankly unperceptive. His book made me want to have another kid, just to see what I missed the first time round."
- Daniel Richler, author of Kicking Tomorrow 

"A warm, insightful and very funny book. Knighton is a writer you enjoy in the moment and think about later."
- Timothy Taylor, author of Stanley Park 

"Ryan Knighton can't see, true. But his capacity to look inward, to create a landscape of what it is to be a blind parent, is nothing short of profound. He's also hilarious, and I'm warning you, you're going to cry, too. C'mon Papa is a memoir like no other, about a life like no other."
- Alicia Erian, author of Towelhead 

"Painfully funny. Whether he's writing about almost getting run over, role-playing a cervix or losing his infant daughter in the snow, Knighton is wise, witty, moving and assured."
- Annabel Lyon, author of The Golden Mean 
 
"A wonderful writer with a gift for laughter when the situation requires it; and even when it doesn't, he is still able to make it work. . . . Incredibly honest, eloquent and moving."
- Ottawa Citizen
 
"Funny and moving, this is neither a fact-driven public service announcement nor a romanticized representation of blindness. . . . Well-written, thoughtful and engaging, this is a discussion of parenting with a difference, a book valuable not so much because it tells a remarkable story but because it tells its story remarkably well." 
- Winnipeg Free Press
&#16...


Ryan Knighton's humorous and perceptive tales of fatherhood take us inside an unusual new family, one bound by its father's particular darkness and light.

C'mon Papa is Ryan Knighton's heartbreaking and hilarious voyage through the first year of fatherhood. Becoming a father is a stressful, daunting rite of passage to be sure, but for a blind father, the fears are unimaginably heightened. Ryan will have to find novel ways to adapt to nearly every aspect of parenting: the most basic skills are nearly impossible to contemplate, let alone master. And how will Ryan get to know this pre-verbal bundle of coos and burps when he can't see her smile, or look into her eyes for hints of the person to come? 

But this is no pity party, and Ryan has no time for sentimentality. Tackling these hurdles with grace and humour, Ryan is determined to do his part - and this is where the fun starts. From holding his daughter as she wails into the night to their first nerve-wracking walk to the cafe, no activity between father and daughter is without its pitfalls. In his struggle to "see" Tess, Ryan reimagines the relationship between father and child during that first chaotic year.

C'mon Papa: Dispatches from a Dad in the Dark is Ryan Knighton's second memoir, written after the birth of his daughter, Tess. (I reviewed Knighton's Cockeyed: a Memoir in April.) In his latest book, Knighton writes of his experiences as a blind father raising a daughter. 

C'mon Papa is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the conception, where Knighton's wife Tracy suffers a miscarriage as a result of a molar pregnancy. Tracy goes through chemotherapy and the Knightons must wait a year before trying again to conceive. The second part is about the birth and Knighton's trials with an infant. The third part deals with blind life with a two-year-old. I did not find this story as funny as Cockeyed, although it still was a book I couldn't put down. Knighton writes of his failures at diaper-changing and baby-minding. After a heavy snowfall, Knighton loses his daughter while they are playing outside and there is a sense of panic that infects the reader until they are reunited. More tales of near-disaster, or even near-death, are included. The toughest time for Knighton is trying to care for Tess while she is a baby. It gets easier for him when she is a toddler since she, even at the age of two, can walk and see and lead her father around. 

Unfortunately I missed seeing Ryan at an author appearance in Toronto while I was in Halifax in early May. It would have been a pleasure to meet him; even more so now that I have read his latest memoir. 


Maybe we should write to This American Life and ask that equal airtime be given to competency.

Jo Elizabeth

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong.  Because someday in life you will have been all of these."--George Washington Carver, 1864-1943, American scientist