Home Shop Books Non-fiction: Memoirs & Essays Dear Current Occupant by Chelene Knight

"From Clark Drive to Commercial and Broadway, Dear Current Occupant is a love song to Eat Vancouver - it is a map of scars, and as everyone knows, scars make for good storytelling." - CARLEIGH BAKER, author of Bad Endings, finalist for the 2018 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. "Dear Current Occupant is an astonishing book: haunting, intimate, and deeply rendered. A lyrical memoir set against the backdrop of Vancouver's gritty Eastside, it triumphantly illuminates the pain of un-belonging, the search for a home, and the power of words to heal and transform us." - AYELET TSABARI, author of The Best Place on Earth "Dear Current Occupant will surely become a nuanced creative touchstone that shows us how our stories of survival can and should be told." - AMBER DAWN, author of Sub Rosa and How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler's Memoir DEAR CURRENT OCCUPANT is a creative non-fiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s in the Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Using a vairety of forms including letters, essays and poems, Chelene Knight reflects on her childhood through a series of letters addressed to all of the current occupants now living in the twenty different houses she in and out of with her mother and brother. From blurry and fragmented non-chronological memoirs of trying to fit in with her own family as the only mixed East Indian/Black child, to crystal-clear recollections of parental drug use, Knight draws a vivid portrait of memory that still longs for a place and a home. Peering through windows and doors into intimate, remembered spaces now occupied by strangers, Knight writes to them to deconstruct her own past. From the rubble of memory she then builds a real place in order to bring herself back home.

Book preview for Dear Current Occupant by Chelene Knight. For long description of book preview images, clock on link below the heading Description.

Dear Current Occupant by Chelene Knight

Name: Dear Current Occupant by Chelene Knight
SKU: SO0011
Availability: InStock

C$21.00

Paperback, 132 pages, ISBN: 9781771663908
Published by Book*hug Press, 2018

In stock

Sold By: Young W

Categories: Books, Non-fiction: Memoirs & Essays

See long description associated with images on this page.
From the publisher:

Winner of the 2018 City of Vancouver Book Award

From Vancouver-based writer Chelene Knight, Dear Current Occupant is a creative non-fiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Using a variety of forms, Knight reflects on her childhood through a series of letters addressed to all of the current occupants now living in the twenty different houses she moved in and out of with her mother and brother. From blurry non-chronological memories of trying to fit in with her own family as the only mixed East Indian/Black child, to crystal clear recollections of parental drug use, Knight draws a vivid portrait of memory that still longs for a place and a home.

Peering through windows and doors into intimate, remembered spaces now occupied by strangers, Knight writes to them in order to deconstruct her own past. From the rubble of memory she then builds a real place in order to bring herself back home.

About the author:

Chelene Knight

was born in Vancouver, and is currently the Managing Editor of Room Magazine. A graduate of The Writers’ Studio at SFU, Chelene has been published in various Canadian and American literary magazines. Her debut book, Braided Skin, was published in 2015. Dear Current Occupant is her second book. Chelene is also working on a historical novel set in the 1930’s and 40’s in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley.

(Credits: Publisher’s description has been retrieved from BiblioShare. Front and back cover photo by Jenn Collins.)