C'MON PAPA

An intimate, irreverent, and unpredictable story of new fatherhood, from the perspective of a blind man.

The final pages of Cockeyed, Ryan Knighton's internationally acclaimed comic memoir about going blind and growing up, closed with a casual musing about the future, and what fatherhood could mean for a blind man whose off-beat ways tend to privilege misadventure over common sense. Within days of that book's publication, Ryan's wife, Tracy, was pregnant.

C'MON PAPA chronicles the first two years of blind fatherhood. Through unorthodox tales and reflections - both moving and wicked - Ryan takes us inside a new family bound and illuminated by his particular darkness and light. Balancing the sad and bittersweet with laugh-out-loud humour, the story begins in the shadow of a miscarriage, amidst a risk of birth defects that leaves Ryan and Tracy in a state of constant worry.

C'MON PAPA is Ryan's hilarious take on the spectacle of modern fatherhood - from pretending to be a cervix in prenatal class to attempting to change diapers without being able to see. The book is as much the story of Ryan's birth into a strange new world as it is about his child's arrival, and what the experience taught him about family, fear, marriage, hope, and the capacity of will.

Ryan Knighton is the author of the critically acclaimed COCKEYED: A MEMOIR, which was published around the world and is in development as a major motion picture. His comic essays have appeared in Esquire, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail and Salon. At the age of eighteen Knighton was diagnosed with the degenerative eye condition retinitis pigmentosa and is now blind, which is blinder than he’d like to admit. He teaches English at Capilano University and lives in East Vancouver with his wife and young daughter. For more informations visit www.ryanknighton.com.