Cheston Knapp 
Up Up, Down Down 
Essays

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.