Up up, down down
Subtitle: essays
By: Cheston Knapp
Edition: First Scribner hardcover edition.
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 310
ISBN-13: 9781501161025
Copyright date: 2018
Subjects: Conduit of life; American wit and humor
Work titles: Essays
Description: "Daring and wise, hilarious and tender, Cheston Knapp's exhilarating collection of seven linked essays, Up Up, Down Down, tackles Big Questions through 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 blooms 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 dank 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 his marriage that echo throughout the collection, and ultimately he tilts at what may be the Biggest Q of them all: What are the hazards of becoming who you are?"--Jacket flap.
Notes: Linked essays.
Table of contents: title: Faces of pain --; title: Beirut --; title: Learning curves --; title: Far from me --; title: Mysteries we live with --; title: Neighborhood watch --; title: Something's gotta stick.