The First Post; Date: 2007 March 31; Section: Arts

Books: The Week's Best Reading

Misery memoirs - or ToTs (triumphs over tragedy) as they are known in the trade - are an acquired taste. Ryan Knighton's account of encroaching blindness is, however, unusual in that it's not in the least bit miserable. Of his experiences as a blind clubber he notes: 'I have argued with empty bar stools, talked to pillars, bounced off bouncers, pissed between urinals, and hit on shadows'. It is a tone that sustains him from the day of his 18th birthday when he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa - a degenerative disease of the eye - through his experiences as a teacher in South Korea and Canada as he sought first to deny and then come to terms with his blindness. It's a remarkable performance both by him and for the reader too - the blind leading the sighted.

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