Impossible Man

Recognized by readers of his novel, The Taqwacores, as the godfather of American Muslim punk, Michael Muhammad Knight is a voice for the growing number of teenagers who choose neither side of the “Clash of Civilizations.” Knight has now written his personal story, a chronicle of his bizarre and traumatic boyhood and his conversion to Islam during a turbulent adolescence. Impossible Man follows a boy’s struggle in coming to terms with his father—a paranoid schizophrenic and white supremacist who had threatened to decapitate Michael when he was a baby—and his father’s place in his own identity. It is also the story of a teenager’s troubled path to maturity and the influences that steady him along the way. Knight’s encounter with Malcolm X’s autobiography transforms him from a disturbed teenager engaged in correspondence with Charles Manson to a zealous Muslim convert who travels to Pakistan and studies in a madrassa. Later disillusioned by radical religion, he again faces the crisis of self-definition. For all its extremes, Impossible Man describes a universal journey: a wounded boy in search of a working model of manhood, going to outrageous lengths to find it. Impossible Man Is The Story Of A Teenager's Troubled Pathway Toward Maturity And The Influences That Steady Him On His Way To Adulthood. Holy Ghost And Fire -- Heroes And Hero-worship -- The Battle Of Swamp Road -- Creep, Jr. -- Helter Skelter -- El-hajj Malik El-shabazz -- Prostrations And Ejaculations -- Malik Al-kafi Khan -- If We're Lucky, His Brain Is Shot To Shit -- The One Percenters -- Witness -- Actual Facts -- Full Power -- A New Hope -- Traveling Through Hyperspace Ain't Like Dusting Crops, Boy -- Mein Amriken Musalman Hoon -- The Strongest Man -- Goat Head Soup -- Drops Of Hellfire -- Going Home -- Out Of Step -- Slayers Of Husayn -- In The Name Of Vince Mcmahon -- History Of The Egyptian Wrestling Federation -- The Furious Cock -- Manchild In The North Country -- Manned Missiles -- Dutch Sailors. Michael Muhammad Knight.