Cockeyed

GQ (UK)

... Exceptional . . . Cockeyed gleefully plays up the slapstick of his situation but it's still an eye-opening account.

Sunday Telegraph (UK)

... Unparalleled user's guide to blindness that will benefit the sighted as much as the sightless

Vogue (UK)

... Unexpectedly and frequently funny...and his total lack of self pity makes this book an enlightening and enjoyable read.

Times (UK)

... Engaging, often moving...This is a thoughtful and likeable book. It is, most certainly, an eye-opener.

Rain Taxi Review of Books

"Knighton's honest and sarcastic style enable him to balance the humor of pathos with the burn of poignancy . . . "

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Knighton's 18th birthday is spoiled when an optometrist diagnoses him with retinits pigmentosa, a progressive eye disease that leads to blindness. In this surprisingly humorous memoir, he discusses his initial denial and eventual acceptance of the condition.

Publishers Weekly

Knighton, who teaches at Capilano College in Vancouver, started going blind in his teens, and in this hilarious and unsentimental yet moving memoir, he tells what it was like to lose his eyesight. He was born in the early 1970s, grew up in British Columbia and by 1987 was showing signs of poor vision. He began losing his sight early enough that the time frames of his coming-of-age and his coming-of-blindness overlap. Milestones such as his first driving experiences and his first relationships with girls, which would have been ordinary for other teenagers, were anything but for him. As he moved into adulthood, he also moved further into sightlessness, yet he turns the story into something so bracing that it reads like a travelogue-you can't wait to know where he's going next, whether it's to attend college in Vancouver, teach English in South Korea or get married. Wit can be a weapon, but can also be a kind of walking stick; being so gifted clearly guided Knighton long before anything began to happen to his eyes. Luckily for his readers, he was also gifted with a different kind of care and clear-sightedness, never stumbling into the maudlin. His book is an invitation to take a journey that no reader should refuse, to see life through another lens. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Intense personal reflections on how it feels to come of age and to go blind at the same time. Canadian Knighton was 18 when diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, an incurable degenerative condition leading to total blindness. Today, some 15 years later, he is a poet, essayist, journalist and teacher (Literature and Writing/Capilano College, Vancouver) with about one percent of a functional retina remaining (the characteristic "tunnel vision" of his affliction has nearly passed). His memoir is one of initial rejection of his diagnosis, then stubborn resistance to the obvious deterioration of his vision and, eventually, acceptance not only of his "blinding" but its effect on the people he cares most about: his wife, Tracy, his family and his friends. The author doesn't do a lot of wallowing; the narrative is fast-paced laced with a humor and irony that give it edge. Finally learning to use a blind person's cane, for example, becomes a key transition point as Knighton soon amazes himself with the novel possibilities of "seeing" via the end of a stick. And in one instance, he unwittingly "stares" at a woman in a bar who becomes annoyed enough to approach him and complain, thus setting up an evening of near triumph-not only does he pass for a guy who can see, he actually picks her up, but then bungles the tryst. The pathos of the apparent suicide of his younger brother triggers a final acceptance of the author's condition; his marriage follows shortly, wherein he finds that allowing and trusting Tracy to become "my eyes" has completed the passage. Engaging and insightful, literally shedding light on a dark and misunderstood condition.