Quitting the Nairobi Trio Author:Jim Knipfel The critically acclaimed author of Slackjaw is forced to spend six months in a locked-door psych ward, only to find that life can be better on the inside. — Thomas Pynchon calls Jim Knipfel's writing "extraordinary," while Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times says that he is "blessed with a natural, one might even say reflexive, knack for telli... more »ng stories" that display "remarkable lan and some wicked black humor." Now, Knipfel uses those abilities to chronicle six months he spent in a Minneapolis psychiatric ward, where he was left to become his own therapeutic counsel.
As his new memoir begins, Knipfel has just failed at another suicide attempt. This time he is forced to stay in a psych ward until a doctor, whose once-a-week sessions last for ten minutes, deems him mentally fit to leave. Effectively abandoned, Knipfel begins his own self-analysis and embarks upon a series of haphazard skirmishes to regain his sanity, make new friends, and devise ways to pass the time. Finally, revelation and insight from a fellow patient and the late television comic Ernie Kovacs supply an answer only a paranoid could appreciate.
While Quitting the Nairobi Trio is similar to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, the difference in this remarkable book is that Jim Knipfel enjoyed life in the "bin."« less