In the tradition of John Jeremiah Sullivan and David Foster Wallace, Cheston Knapp’s Up Up, Down Down “is an always smart, often hilarious, and ultimately transcendent essay collection” (Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See) that brilliantly explores authenticity and the nature of identity.
Daring and wise, hilarious and tender, Cheston Knapp’s “glittering” (Leslie Jamison) collection of seven linked essays tackles the Big Questions through seemingly 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 expands into an interrogation of our culture’s prevailing ideas about community. Even more remarkable, perhaps, is the way he manages to find humanity in a damp 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 marriage that echo throughout the collection, and ultimately tilts at what may be the Biggest Q of them all: what are the hazards of becoming who you are?
With “a firmly tongue-in-cheek approach to the existential crises of male maturity for the millennial generation…Knapp’s intelligent take on coming-of-age deserves to be widely read” (Publishers Weekly). “Compelling…Precise and laugh-inducing” (The New York Times Book Review), Up Up, Down Down signals the arrival of a truly one-of-a-kind voice.
Industry Reviews
"Up, Up, Down, Down is an always smart, often hilarious, and ultimately transcendent essay collection, full of thousand-dollar words and genuine goodness. You think you're reading about tennis, low-rent wrestling, the death of a neighbor, or the perils of beer pong, but suddenly you're pondering the biggest questions: What is kindness? What is self-consciousness? How does articulating an experience change it? It's an unqualified pleasure to be in Knapp's company."--Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See
"Cheston Knapp's Up Up, Down Down has the uncanny, welcome ability to make so-called mainstream or dominant culture--white, masculinist, Christian, frat boy, and so on--appear newly strange, and newly open to analysis. He has the eye and ear of an anthropologist, a joyously expansive vocabulary, a prose style that feels both extravagant and exact, and a big, booming heart."--Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts
"Full of wit and disquiet, Cheston Knapp's Up Up, Down Down is a glittering collection of essays about nostalgia, skateboarding, fathers, waterslides, and all kinds of community. The path toward whatever we mean by "maturity" is a flowering vine of fruitful discomfort in these pages, and so much grows from it: acute self-awareness, intricate curiosity, tender interrogations. This book made me laugh out loud in embarrassing places--a quiet Swedish train, a darkened redeye flight--and its insights will keep echoing in me for a long time."--Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams
"Pierce the surface to get to the depths, then rise up from the depths to laugh on the surface-- Knapp performs some amazing alchemy in Up Up, Down Down by letting the two planes coexist so beautifully. Here's a voice ever so light and generous and funny and yet the essays probe and get to real substance and resonance. It's like a great party conversation under sparkly lights with umbrella cocktails where you emerge with your mind a little better."--Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
