Up Up, Down Down: Essays

"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.