Jim Knipfel has walked on the dark side of life. As a young man, he was a heavy drinker, and a petty thief prone to start fights. He spent time in psychiatric wards after multiple suicide attempts. Finally, in his late twenties he started settling down, landing a job as a newspaper columnist, getting married and moving away from his wilder drinking buddies. But then Knipfel entered a literal dark side. His eyesight had always been poor, but doctors told him that he was going to be blind by age 35. Now almost completely blind, he recounts his wild years and his loss of vision in his new blackly comedic memoir Slackjaw.