Jim Knipfel

James Knipfel was born on 2 June 1965 at the Air Force base in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to George and Janice Knipfel. His father served in the United States Air Force, and in 1968 the family moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he later described a close-knit and loving small town childhood. Early on he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that left him blind by about 35.

In his teens and early twenties he struggled with severe depression, which he later wrote about openly in his memoirs. He graduated from Green Bay East High School in 1983, studied physics at the University of Chicago, then transferred to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he graduated with a degree in philosophy, before going on to graduate school at the University of Minnesota.

Knipfel moved to Philadelphia in 1987 and, under editor Derek Davis, began the weekly column "Slackjaw" in the alternative paper the Welcomat; the first one appeared on 25 October 1987. In 1990 he moved to Brooklyn, and in 1993 he moved the column to the New York Press, where he became a receptionist and then a full time columnist and staff writer, covering news, film, music and the crime blotter until he was let go in June 2006. "Slackjaw" continued at Electron Press and later on Patreon, appearing in one place or another for close to forty years.

His first memoir, Slackjaw (1999), chronicled the decline of his eyesight and was well received, with Thomas Pynchon calling it "an extraordinary emotional ride". Quitting the Nairobi Trio (2000) and Ruining It for Everybody (2004) followed. His novels included The Buzzing (2003), Noogie's Time to Shine, Unplugging Philco (2009) and The Blow-Off (2011), alongside the story collection These Children Who Come at You With Knives (2010). He published fifteen books in all, and his articles appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News, the Village Voice, Film Quarterly and The Believer. From 2023 he wrote for Truthdig, and in 2025 he won first place for online current events columns at the Los Angeles Press Club's Southern California Journalism Awards.

Knipfel moved to Brooklyn in 1990 with his then wife, Laura, and lived there for about thirty years. He had a long association with the San Francisco avant pop band The Residents, appeared in and narrated a few films, and was the subject of a 60 Minutes segment by Morley Safer. In 2021 he returned to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to be near his mother and sister. He was survived by his mother, Janice, his sister, Mary Adrians, nieces, great nephews and great nieces, aunts, cousins and many friends; his father, George, died before him.

Jim Knipfel died on 7 October 2026, aged 61, after a year-long battle with cancer; Wikipedia describes it as bile duct cancer. His obituary was published by Simply Cremation of Green Bay and on Legacy.com, and in keeping with his long interest in how obituaries are written, part of it was written in his own voice. A private family service was held at his request.

Knipfel's work is remembered for turning blindness, depression and urban misadventure into dark, funny and unsentimental storytelling. He also wrote for years about the deaths of notable people, often complaining that obituaries failed to do them justice. His own closing words summed up his life: a thousand regrets, failures, mistakes and bad decisions, but no complaints, and an interesting ride while it lasted.