Dear Current Occupant

Name: Dear Current Occupant
Brand: Findaway Voices
Availability: InStock
Author: Chelene Knight
ISBN: 9781771664714

Author: Chelene Knight

Narrator: Karen Jewels

Unabridged: 2 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: ECW

Published: 12/01/2018

Categories: Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Women, Memoirs

Synopsis

Dear Current Occupant is a creative nonfiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.Using a variety of forms including letters, essays and poems, 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 and fragmented 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 Chelene Knight

CHELENE KNIGHT is the author of the novel Junie, which was longlisted for the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction; the memoir Dear Current Occupant, winner of the 2018 Vancouver Book Award and longlisted for the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature; and Braided Skin. Her essays have appeared in multiple Canadian and American publications. Previously the managing editor at Room magazine and the director of the Growing Room Festival in Vancouver, Knight has also worked as a poetry professor at the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia and as a literary agent at the Transatlantic Agency. Knight has now founded her own literary studio, Breathing Space Creative, through which sheâ€™s launched the Forever Writers Club, a membership for writers focused on creative sustainability; the Thrive coaching program; and the Rise author care program.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Heather on March 30, 2018

The structure of this book really gives you the feeling of being in all these apartments and hotel rooms. It was papable. Photos were remarkable too. Captures the guilt and love and desperation of having a parent who is a burden on a child. Some children have so much to carry. Knight turns it into p......more

Goodreads review by jordan on August 05, 2022

I put the audiobook on for this so that I could clean my room while doing homework. With about an hour left, I think I laid down in bed, gave up on the cleaning, and just... existed with the book playing. Dear Current Occupant hit me in ways I didn't know it would. I don't think there's any way to r......more

Goodreads review by Isabella on April 11, 2018

For those out there who weren’t hugged enough as children— trust that Chelene’s words will hold you as you read them, like a hug, because sometimes to have someone say, “I understand, I’ve been there, I hear you,” means as much as just that.......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on March 09, 2021

A memoir that feels incredibly personal and plays with memory. Reading this is like traveling with Charlene to her 20 different childhood homes in Vancouver. I loved how this book was structured and acknowledged the challenges of recalling your childhood perfectly.......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie’s on March 20, 2025

Hey, I live there!......more