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Heavy
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Memoir & Autobiography (2018)In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse.
Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been.
In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood—and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we’ve been.
In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.
A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood—and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
241 pages, Hardcover
First published October 16, 2018
About the author
Kiese Laymon
27 books3,007 followersKiese Laymon is a black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon attended Millsaps College and Jackson State University before graduating from Oberlin College. He earned an MFA from Indiana University and is the author of the forthcoming novel, Long Division in June 2013 and a collection of essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America in August 2013. Laymon is a contributing editor at gawker.com. He has written essays and stories for numerous publications including Esquire, ESPN.com, NPR, Gawker, Truthout.com, Longman’s Hip Hop Reader, Mythium and Politics and Culture. Laymon is currently an Associate Professor of English, Creative Writing and co-director of Africana Studies at Vassar College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 5,219 reviews
April 17, 2018
How do you carry the weight of being a black man in America? In electrifying, deliberate prose, Kiese Laymon tries to answer that question from the first page of Heavy: An American Memoir to the last. He writes about what it means to live in a heavy body, in all senses of that word. He writes of family, love, place, trauma, race, desire, grief, rage, addiction, and human weakness, and he does so relentlessly, without apology. To call the way Laymon lays himself bare an act of courageous grace is beside the point but what and how he writes in this exceptional book are, indeed, acts of courageous grace.
January 4, 2019
I find this memoir near impossible to review for a number of reasons:
the book was near impossible to read for me;
the book is brilliant;
the book is not written for me.
If you only take one thing from my review, let it be this: Kiese Laymon is utterly, utterly brilliant. On a simple sentence by sentence level his writing is absolutely stunning, it wrecked me in the perfection of his prose. But even more so, the structure of this memoir is impeccable and the way he tells his story and makes is points is just brilliant. I read very many memoirs but it is rare that I have a reaction as visceral as I had here. The whole book is a lesson in how to gut your reader with your words. And I mean this in the best possible way (and the worst: it took me forever to finish this because I needed to take breaks to read something else).
Laymon tells the story of his body – and how his relationship to his body is influenced by his difficult relationship to his mother. The way he grounds his experiences in the way his body reacted to them added a layer to this memoir that I appreciated immensely. Written in second person narration addressing his mum, Laymon lays it all bare for the world to see. Especially the first and last chapters really drove home how incredible his craft is and how deep the cuts his life made are. I found the book near unbearable in the claustrophobia of the unfairness of it all: the unfairness of racism, of poverty, of eating disorder, of addiction. The book is this successful because it is written for black people rather than about black people – a point Laymon makes at various points throughout the book, something he learned from his mother and his own mistakes.
Ultimately this is an intimate love/hate letter to the most important person in his life and I feel very grateful to have been able to read this.
You can find this review and other thoughts on books on my blog.
the book was near impossible to read for me;
the book is brilliant;
the book is not written for me.
If you only take one thing from my review, let it be this: Kiese Laymon is utterly, utterly brilliant. On a simple sentence by sentence level his writing is absolutely stunning, it wrecked me in the perfection of his prose. But even more so, the structure of this memoir is impeccable and the way he tells his story and makes is points is just brilliant. I read very many memoirs but it is rare that I have a reaction as visceral as I had here. The whole book is a lesson in how to gut your reader with your words. And I mean this in the best possible way (and the worst: it took me forever to finish this because I needed to take breaks to read something else).
Laymon tells the story of his body – and how his relationship to his body is influenced by his difficult relationship to his mother. The way he grounds his experiences in the way his body reacted to them added a layer to this memoir that I appreciated immensely. Written in second person narration addressing his mum, Laymon lays it all bare for the world to see. Especially the first and last chapters really drove home how incredible his craft is and how deep the cuts his life made are. I found the book near unbearable in the claustrophobia of the unfairness of it all: the unfairness of racism, of poverty, of eating disorder, of addiction. The book is this successful because it is written for black people rather than about black people – a point Laymon makes at various points throughout the book, something he learned from his mother and his own mistakes.
Ultimately this is an intimate love/hate letter to the most important person in his life and I feel very grateful to have been able to read this.
You can find this review and other thoughts on books on my blog.
January 24, 2019
"I wanted to write a lie
I wanted that lie to be titillating.
I wrote that lie.
It was titillating.
You would have loved it.
I discovered nothing.
You would have loved it.
I started over and wrote what we hoped I'd forget."
So begins this letter, memoir that Laymon writes for and to his mother. Growing up in Jackson. Mississippi, to a brilliant and difficult to understand mother, he struggles to understand his place in the world, in his family. A house filled with books, and a mother that alternately hugged him and punished him by beating him. He struggled with his weight, struggled with other people's opinion and his own blackness, his thoughts on sex. I am not black, I can read but empathise, but not really understand. Do know that this is an amazingly powerful book. I do know and can feel his anguish expressed so honestly in these pages. I do believe this is s book everyone, regardless of color or sex, should read.
I wanted that lie to be titillating.
I wrote that lie.
It was titillating.
You would have loved it.
I discovered nothing.
You would have loved it.
I started over and wrote what we hoped I'd forget."
So begins this letter, memoir that Laymon writes for and to his mother. Growing up in Jackson. Mississippi, to a brilliant and difficult to understand mother, he struggles to understand his place in the world, in his family. A house filled with books, and a mother that alternately hugged him and punished him by beating him. He struggled with his weight, struggled with other people's opinion and his own blackness, his thoughts on sex. I am not black, I can read but empathise, but not really understand. Do know that this is an amazingly powerful book. I do know and can feel his anguish expressed so honestly in these pages. I do believe this is s book everyone, regardless of color or sex, should read.
April 20, 2020
Following the author's life from his childhood in Jackson, Mississippi, to his teaching position at Vassar College, Kiese Laymon's memoir considers what it means to grow up Black, male, and heavy in America. Laymon centers Heavy on his close bond with his single mother, and from that viewpoint he writes succinctly about body image, Blackness, masculinity, trauma, language, education, addiction, and so much more. The memoir is divided into four parts, each with four sections, all addressed to Laymon's mother, a college professor who struggled to care for herself as she pushed her son to be his best. Laymon is talented at capturing a person's strengths as well as their flaws, including his own, and his prose is rhythmic and full of memorable lines.
January 21, 2019
I've struggled with this book - reading it, reviewing it - for a host of reasons. There has been a lot of discussion in Instagram about white people reading black memoirs and adding to the audience of suffering. I haven't participated in the discussion but I have been following it to a small extent.
On Friday, I went to a Beloved Community breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr., with 200 or so people from my community gathering together. The speaker was Wade Davis, an activist who is openly gay but also works against toxic masculinity, etc. His advice had several points but ended with telling everyone they should read - read books by people who are not like you, read to understand them, to gain empathy, until they are you and you do not see them as the other.
So this is the perspective through which I read Laymon's memoir.
I was first introduced to this book at AWP in Tampa, when I attended a panel called "This is Scary and Here We Go: Fear in the Driver's Seat." Kiese was not on the list of authors to present but so many people were unable to get to the conference because of winter storms that there were missing presenters all over the place, and he was able to fill in for another writer on this one. He shared about this book, which he had recently finished, and how full of second guessing he was, by how much he'd shared, how honest he'd been, how he had to write it but wish he hadn't. I knew it would not be an easy read.
Laymon explores what it's like to move through the world in a black body, it's true, and that's often the first thing people say. But his body is also one that has not been protected in other ways. He has suffered what reads between the lines like inappropriate sexual contact with family members from a young age, because of his size and availability. The entire narrative is addressed to his mother, who is the "you," but it can make for an uncomfortable reading experience as it feels addressed to the reader. Members of his family struggle with different types of addiction and at first it just seems like drugs, but then more is revealed, and all seems tied to his weight - the weight of secrets, the weight of being physically heavy, the weight of carrying financial worry, the weight of unhealthful lightness, the weight of imposter syndrome in academia paired with insane accusations at every stage of achievement, whether it's an A paper or a tenure review.
Here it is, on the page. It feels like he wrote it because he had to. I don't know if I felt completely comfortable participating in that process, but maybe that's the side of heavy that can turn positive - if you move through life and go ahead and take up space, other people can deal with it however they want, and how they do is really none of your business. I think that is the way that I most resonate with his narrative.
I received an eARC from the publisher through Edelweiss, but the book has been out since October 16, 2018, and made a lot of books of the year lists. It took me a while longer to get through it, but I am glad I read it.
On Friday, I went to a Beloved Community breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr., with 200 or so people from my community gathering together. The speaker was Wade Davis, an activist who is openly gay but also works against toxic masculinity, etc. His advice had several points but ended with telling everyone they should read - read books by people who are not like you, read to understand them, to gain empathy, until they are you and you do not see them as the other.
So this is the perspective through which I read Laymon's memoir.
I was first introduced to this book at AWP in Tampa, when I attended a panel called "This is Scary and Here We Go: Fear in the Driver's Seat." Kiese was not on the list of authors to present but so many people were unable to get to the conference because of winter storms that there were missing presenters all over the place, and he was able to fill in for another writer on this one. He shared about this book, which he had recently finished, and how full of second guessing he was, by how much he'd shared, how honest he'd been, how he had to write it but wish he hadn't. I knew it would not be an easy read.
Laymon explores what it's like to move through the world in a black body, it's true, and that's often the first thing people say. But his body is also one that has not been protected in other ways. He has suffered what reads between the lines like inappropriate sexual contact with family members from a young age, because of his size and availability. The entire narrative is addressed to his mother, who is the "you," but it can make for an uncomfortable reading experience as it feels addressed to the reader. Members of his family struggle with different types of addiction and at first it just seems like drugs, but then more is revealed, and all seems tied to his weight - the weight of secrets, the weight of being physically heavy, the weight of carrying financial worry, the weight of unhealthful lightness, the weight of imposter syndrome in academia paired with insane accusations at every stage of achievement, whether it's an A paper or a tenure review.
Here it is, on the page. It feels like he wrote it because he had to. I don't know if I felt completely comfortable participating in that process, but maybe that's the side of heavy that can turn positive - if you move through life and go ahead and take up space, other people can deal with it however they want, and how they do is really none of your business. I think that is the way that I most resonate with his narrative.
I received an eARC from the publisher through Edelweiss, but the book has been out since October 16, 2018, and made a lot of books of the year lists. It took me a while longer to get through it, but I am glad I read it.
January 4, 2020
The last time I read a memoir as powerful and unforgettable as “Heavy” by Kiese Laymon was Roxane Gay’s “Hunger.” So it seems especially appropriate that she would be the one to write the cover blurb for Laymon’s book.
“Heavy is astonishing. Difficult. Intense. Layered. Wow. Just wow.”
Laymon’s sentences are each finely crafted gems. The deep dive he makes into his history, examining his relationships with his Mother and Grandmother, issues of obesity, anorexia, abuse, trauma, secrets, lies, and truth was intense, brave, and emotionally raw and wrenching. A huge thank you to Laymon for his willingness to so honestly bare his pain and his heart, and for doing so with such exquisite and eloquent writing. This is a book I won’t soon forget and I highly recommend it.
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
“Heavy is astonishing. Difficult. Intense. Layered. Wow. Just wow.”
Laymon’s sentences are each finely crafted gems. The deep dive he makes into his history, examining his relationships with his Mother and Grandmother, issues of obesity, anorexia, abuse, trauma, secrets, lies, and truth was intense, brave, and emotionally raw and wrenching. A huge thank you to Laymon for his willingness to so honestly bare his pain and his heart, and for doing so with such exquisite and eloquent writing. This is a book I won’t soon forget and I highly recommend it.
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
October 27, 2018
A brilliant and harrowing memoir about growing up black in America. In a roughly chronological fashion, Kiese Laymon details his coming of age in Mississippi, his college years, and his job as a professor at Vassar College. As a child, he dealt with physical/sexual abuse, and throughout his life he dealt with persistent racism that damaged his body and his relationships. With a consistent overarching focus on structural racism, Laymon hones in on two salient aspects of his life in Heavy: his complicated, fraught, and deep relationship with his mother, and the disordered eating and body image issues he faced for years and years. Laymon's writing about these two areas invites us to think and to feel about several pressing, heartrending topics, such as the ways that we replicate the abusive relationship styles modeled to us by our country and our elders, as well as how marginalized people use our bodies to cope with or block out discrimination. Laymon is intelligent, eloquent, and raw. The comparisons to Roxane Gay are most definitely warranted.
I most loved Heavy for how Laymon speaks truth to power. He writes about how the system (e.g., the United States, higher education within the United States) is rigged against people of color - especially black and brown people - with passion and poignancy. As someone in academia, I felt both inspired and saddened reading Laymon's revelations about his time in the academy, inspired by his courage and saddened that he and so many others suffer. I also appreciated Laymon's willingness to admit to his own shortcomings, such as how he has failed some students and committed errors in his relationships.
Overall, a moving memoir I would recommend to fans of the genre and those interested in race, body image/disordered eating, and parent/child dynamics. There were a few places where I felt like certain things could have been more explicitly addressed (e.g., so how did the recovery or lack thereof from disordered eating and gambling happen? how did he feel about his mother when certain things happened?) but that's just my personal preference. Looking forward to reading more of Laymon's work.
I most loved Heavy for how Laymon speaks truth to power. He writes about how the system (e.g., the United States, higher education within the United States) is rigged against people of color - especially black and brown people - with passion and poignancy. As someone in academia, I felt both inspired and saddened reading Laymon's revelations about his time in the academy, inspired by his courage and saddened that he and so many others suffer. I also appreciated Laymon's willingness to admit to his own shortcomings, such as how he has failed some students and committed errors in his relationships.
Overall, a moving memoir I would recommend to fans of the genre and those interested in race, body image/disordered eating, and parent/child dynamics. There were a few places where I felt like certain things could have been more explicitly addressed (e.g., so how did the recovery or lack thereof from disordered eating and gambling happen? how did he feel about his mother when certain things happened?) but that's just my personal preference. Looking forward to reading more of Laymon's work.
June 27, 2018
At the very beginning of HEAVY, Laymon writes, "I did not want to write to you. I wanted to write a lie." The "you" is Laymon's mother, and the book is, above all else, about the two of them, written with such openly bared love and fear that it feels like intruding on them to read it. Even the people you know best don't reveal themselves to you this way, and that is, perhaps, some of what Laymon is trying to correct for at least one reader.
The heaviness of the title is made manifest throughout the book. It is the weight of trauma kept secret, the weight of generations of black oppression, the weight of truths unspoken, the weight of shame, the weight of expectations, and the actual weight of an actual body. I could feel as I read it, the memory of the original lie Laymon wrote which he could not let stand, and then started over to write this book. The contrast of the truth, the way he forces himself to lay out the facts, but also shows the power of the lie and the lies he tells himself in the choices he makes. All of this makes it one of those memoirs that feels singular, that carves out a new way to show yourself to the world. (For me, it is up there with recent works like HUNGER, NEGROLAND, and THE FACT OF A BODY in that respect.)
Structurally, it is a traditional memoir. It moves forward in linear time, it focuses on certain formative periods, it charts the development of the person the author is now. It is also, it seems, his own attempt to call himself to action while acknowledging all along the way that one thing he has learned so far is that these calls rarely go the way you want them to. Life does not usually give us these simple structures of obstacle followed by growth, so often it is obstacle followed by failure which leads to more failure and an ever-growing spiral of shame. Laymon has the gift of knowledge, of insight, of words, of education, but sometimes all that gives him is the ability to know just how far he has gone wrong.
Laymon grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, raised by a single mother who is also a professor. She surrounds him with books, she assigns him essays, she is in many ways that stereotypical black parent who demands their black child work twice as hard. She also hits him, lies to him, steals from him, and falls into patterns of abuse and addiction that have been passed down to her and that she will in turn pass down to Laymon. As the book tells their story, it also reckons with the heritage of being black in the deep South, what it means to be there, and what it means to leave. It is not that the way Laymon writes about her is unflinching, it is that he lets you see him flinch, see how much he loves her and how much it hurts him to be hurt by her and now to hurt her in return by laying it all bare.
I have been a fan of Laymon's for years, his novel LONG DIVISION is one of my favorites, and I have never read one of his essays that wasn't sublime. HEAVY is an even bigger achievement: masterfully written, moving effortlessly from personal confession to societal critique, seeing the intricacies of the author as well as his place in a bigger world. I was tempted to underline something on almost every page. The only reason I wasn't constantly sharing pictures of it on Instagram Stories was because I never wanted to share just one sentence, I wanted to share whole paragraphs and pages. I actually feel a little bit of guilt writing a good review because Laymon is so unabashedly honest about himself, about addictions and abuse and eating disorders, about his family and his relationships, that it feels like a betrayal to share it publicly. It is truly a gift to write this way and I hope we do not squander it.
The heaviness of the title is made manifest throughout the book. It is the weight of trauma kept secret, the weight of generations of black oppression, the weight of truths unspoken, the weight of shame, the weight of expectations, and the actual weight of an actual body. I could feel as I read it, the memory of the original lie Laymon wrote which he could not let stand, and then started over to write this book. The contrast of the truth, the way he forces himself to lay out the facts, but also shows the power of the lie and the lies he tells himself in the choices he makes. All of this makes it one of those memoirs that feels singular, that carves out a new way to show yourself to the world. (For me, it is up there with recent works like HUNGER, NEGROLAND, and THE FACT OF A BODY in that respect.)
Structurally, it is a traditional memoir. It moves forward in linear time, it focuses on certain formative periods, it charts the development of the person the author is now. It is also, it seems, his own attempt to call himself to action while acknowledging all along the way that one thing he has learned so far is that these calls rarely go the way you want them to. Life does not usually give us these simple structures of obstacle followed by growth, so often it is obstacle followed by failure which leads to more failure and an ever-growing spiral of shame. Laymon has the gift of knowledge, of insight, of words, of education, but sometimes all that gives him is the ability to know just how far he has gone wrong.
Laymon grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, raised by a single mother who is also a professor. She surrounds him with books, she assigns him essays, she is in many ways that stereotypical black parent who demands their black child work twice as hard. She also hits him, lies to him, steals from him, and falls into patterns of abuse and addiction that have been passed down to her and that she will in turn pass down to Laymon. As the book tells their story, it also reckons with the heritage of being black in the deep South, what it means to be there, and what it means to leave. It is not that the way Laymon writes about her is unflinching, it is that he lets you see him flinch, see how much he loves her and how much it hurts him to be hurt by her and now to hurt her in return by laying it all bare.
I have been a fan of Laymon's for years, his novel LONG DIVISION is one of my favorites, and I have never read one of his essays that wasn't sublime. HEAVY is an even bigger achievement: masterfully written, moving effortlessly from personal confession to societal critique, seeing the intricacies of the author as well as his place in a bigger world. I was tempted to underline something on almost every page. The only reason I wasn't constantly sharing pictures of it on Instagram Stories was because I never wanted to share just one sentence, I wanted to share whole paragraphs and pages. I actually feel a little bit of guilt writing a good review because Laymon is so unabashedly honest about himself, about addictions and abuse and eating disorders, about his family and his relationships, that it feels like a betrayal to share it publicly. It is truly a gift to write this way and I hope we do not squander it.
December 12, 2018
Heavy is a memoir that reads like the best novels. A work of art that warrants plenty discussion and begs for dissection. A book that is a force for radical honesty, sincerity and reckoning in society. Laymon knows that if society as a whole cannot deal with our personal histories with radical honesty & sincerity then the United States will continue to be the revolving door of denial that it's always been.
His freedom dream is imaginative, utopian, and so difficult to obtain that it might be impossible, but I'm glad it's available for us to read, and hopefully apply.
His freedom dream is imaginative, utopian, and so difficult to obtain that it might be impossible, but I'm glad it's available for us to read, and hopefully apply.
August 16, 2020
Read once - Listened once ....both powerful.... as in HOLY EVERYTHING!!!!
.....sad, heart wrenching, URGENT!!!
“Heavy” is appropriately titled:
....heavy childhood, (literally and figuratively), heavy body, heavy abuse, heavy struggles,....
heavy racism, weight obsessions, sexual violence, family violence, American violence, a complicated mother-son relationship, trauma, terror, fear, addiction, secrets, lies, white/black issues, coming of age, disadvantages of ‘coming-of-age, intellectual household, ( reading, writing, educational journey to adulthood), rigorous expectations, unsettling to the core, devastating and deeply personal.
Laymon grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. He was an only child....a black kid with a weight problem. A single mother.
The power-struggles between Layman - his mother - and even grandmother had to be soooo confusing!
“Heavy is immeasurable, unfathomable, courageously vulnerable.....
UNREAL!!!
....but this is ‘real’.
Hope the world reads it!!!
I am the one ‘late’ to read it....
I had no idea it would be what it was!!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
.....sad, heart wrenching, URGENT!!!
“Heavy” is appropriately titled:
....heavy childhood, (literally and figuratively), heavy body, heavy abuse, heavy struggles,....
heavy racism, weight obsessions, sexual violence, family violence, American violence, a complicated mother-son relationship, trauma, terror, fear, addiction, secrets, lies, white/black issues, coming of age, disadvantages of ‘coming-of-age, intellectual household, ( reading, writing, educational journey to adulthood), rigorous expectations, unsettling to the core, devastating and deeply personal.
Laymon grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. He was an only child....a black kid with a weight problem. A single mother.
The power-struggles between Layman - his mother - and even grandmother had to be soooo confusing!
“Heavy is immeasurable, unfathomable, courageously vulnerable.....
UNREAL!!!
....but this is ‘real’.
Hope the world reads it!!!
I am the one ‘late’ to read it....
I had no idea it would be what it was!!
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
January 25, 2022
Heavy is overwhelmingly honest, heart wrenching and written in a stunningly beautiful way. Kiese Laymon not only looks into the mirror and sees himself wholly, he reflects all of the ugly injustice and brutality of our culture. Both as American and as African Americans. The long held and brutal belief that as parents of black children you must beat your children and treat them almost cruelly just to keep them safe and enable them to make it to adulthood is devastating. The cruelty that we impose upon each other in the name of love, self defense, and even self love is mind boggling. The amount of abuse that people are willing to dish out and accept in order to feel the slightest hint of love and acceptance is mortifying.
Heavy will gut you in the most necessary way. While reading Heavy you won't be able to hide from the ugly truths. Seeing the devastation that is heaped upon the hearts and minds of our community through the experiences of Laymon cannot be denied once you experience this memoir. Since you can't heal what you won't acknowledge Heavy is a must read.
Where you can find me:
•(♥).•*Monica Is Reading*•.(♥)•
Twitter: @monicaisreading
Instagram: @readermonica
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
Heavy will gut you in the most necessary way. While reading Heavy you won't be able to hide from the ugly truths. Seeing the devastation that is heaped upon the hearts and minds of our community through the experiences of Laymon cannot be denied once you experience this memoir. Since you can't heal what you won't acknowledge Heavy is a must read.
Where you can find me:
•(♥).•*Monica Is Reading*•.(♥)•
Twitter: @monicaisreading
Instagram: @readermonica
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
February 7, 2019
I have been attempting to write a review for this memoir, 'Heavy: An American Memoir' by Kiese Laymon for about a week. I can't explain why I've been having such a difficult time finding the words to describe this book and my feelings about it, especially since I consider it one of the most powerful memoirs I have ever read. Initially, I read a print copy of this book... which I've filled with post-it notes to mark various passages I wanted to return to. After finishing the print copy, I immediately obtained the audiobook just so I could listen to Kiese Laymon, himself, speak his eloquent words into my ear.
Kiese Laymon wrote this memoir in second person, addressing his thoughts to his mother.. a fiercely intelligent, highly educated woman with whom he has had a loving though fraught and complicated relationship. Although it's obvious that the two have had a close relationship, Kiese also struggled with aspects of their mother/son relationship which had also been damaging to him emotionally. He expressed these feelings beautifully in the opening pages....
"I did not want to write to you. I wanted to write a lie. I did not want to write honestly about
black lies, black thighs, black loves, black laughs, black foods, black addictions.... black parents
or black children..... I did not want to write about us. I wanted to write an American memoir. I
realized.. we didn't simply love each other. We were of two vastly generations of blackness, but
I was your child. We had the same husky thighs, short arms, full cheeks, mushy insides, and
minced imaginations. We were excellent at working until our bodies gave out, excellent at
laughing and laughing until we didn't. We were excellent at hiding and misdirecting, swearing
up and down we were naked when we were fully clothed. Our heart meat was thick. Once
punctured though, we waltzed those hearts into war without a plan of escape. No matter how
terrified or hurt we were, we didn't dare ask anybody for help....."
Determined that her son would be successful and safe in his life and yet fully and painfully aware of the challenges he would be up against, Kiese's mother punished him with regular beatings for falling short of the expectations she had for him. She also demanded that he read voraciously from their home filled with books... but never much food.... and write critical essays about those books he had been reading. Seemingly never satisfied with his efforts, she made him write, revise and rewrite.. constantly reminding him that to be successful in America, he would be judged and held to a much higher standard than the white people around him. When Kiese fell short of her expectations, she told him.... "excellence, education and accountability were requirements for keeping black boys in Mississippi healthy and safe from white folk."
Kiese began his memoir with a memory from when he was 11-years-old, 5'9" and 208 pounds. He was always acutely aware of the heaviness of his body.. and the way he would sweat, the fleshiness of his thighs and the stretch marks that ran over his body. In fact, his body is an anchor to his story.. a marker he uses to navigate through the memories of his childhood and young adulthood... memories involving his mother, grandmama, friends and girlfriends. The size of his body and his obsession with food, at first for the emotional comfort it provided him and later for the disgust and revulsion he began to feel toward it, is a main theme in this book. His body seems the central focus of the memoir but I came to realize that his struggle with food and weight and the size of his body were somehow more than they first appeared. Kiese Laymon's struggles with meeting his mother's expectations and his own expectations all seemed to be part of and maybe symbolic of a far greater struggle.
This memoir is about so many things... physical abuse, sexual abuse and violence, struggles with weight, self-starvation, addiction (both to food and gambling),and what it means to be a black boy growing up in Jackson, Mississippi. It's also a love letter from Kiese Laymon to his mother, despite or maybe because of all the struggles they had shared. Kiese's love and appreciation shone through in his words.....
"I will remember that I am your child, and really you are mine.... I will remind you that I did
not write this book to you simply because you are a black woman, or deeply southern, or because
you taught me to read and write. I wrote this book to you because, even though we harmed
each other as American parents and children tend to do, you did everything you could to make
sure the nation and our state did not harm their most vulnerable children... There will always
be scars on, and in, my body from where you harmed me. You will always have scars on, and
in your body from those who harmed you.... You and I have nothing and everything to be
ashamed of, but I am no longer ashamed of this heavy black body you helped create. I know
our beautiful, bruised black bodies are where we bend."
Kiese Laymon's memoir, I believe, is also a message to his country. His struggles as a black boy and now a black man are AMERICA'S struggles.... directly tied to the way that America lies to itself in that self-congratulatory way about its own inherent goodness... or 'exceptionalism'...; and its inability to acknowledge and reckon with its history of racism and oppression.. a history which isn't really in the past.... economic disempowerment, mass incarceration and the gunning down by police of young black men (Tamir Rice, in Cleveland) come to mind. But in writing these words, I finally realize where my discomfort in writing about this memoir comes from. I'm not the person who should be delivering this message. These are Kiese Laymon's words and he is so much more eloquent than I.....
"For a few seconds, I remembered that the most abusive parts of our nation obsessively neglect
yesterday while peddling in possibility. I remembered that we got here by refusing to honestly
remember together. I remembered that it was easier to promise than it was to reckon or change....
I finally understood there can be no liberation when our most intimate relationships are built
on- and really infected by-deceptions, abuse, misdirection, antiblackness, patriarchy and
bald-faced lies."
This book was not an easy read, despite its beautiful language. In fact, reading it caused me a great deal of distress. Kiese Laymon's words were not cruel so much as they were honest and pointed. His anger, hurt and shame were on display for the world to see. Read this book.... and if you're so inclined, listen to the audiobook. Kiese Laymon's words AND his voice are powerful.
Kiese Laymon wrote this memoir in second person, addressing his thoughts to his mother.. a fiercely intelligent, highly educated woman with whom he has had a loving though fraught and complicated relationship. Although it's obvious that the two have had a close relationship, Kiese also struggled with aspects of their mother/son relationship which had also been damaging to him emotionally. He expressed these feelings beautifully in the opening pages....
"I did not want to write to you. I wanted to write a lie. I did not want to write honestly about
black lies, black thighs, black loves, black laughs, black foods, black addictions.... black parents
or black children..... I did not want to write about us. I wanted to write an American memoir. I
realized.. we didn't simply love each other. We were of two vastly generations of blackness, but
I was your child. We had the same husky thighs, short arms, full cheeks, mushy insides, and
minced imaginations. We were excellent at working until our bodies gave out, excellent at
laughing and laughing until we didn't. We were excellent at hiding and misdirecting, swearing
up and down we were naked when we were fully clothed. Our heart meat was thick. Once
punctured though, we waltzed those hearts into war without a plan of escape. No matter how
terrified or hurt we were, we didn't dare ask anybody for help....."
Determined that her son would be successful and safe in his life and yet fully and painfully aware of the challenges he would be up against, Kiese's mother punished him with regular beatings for falling short of the expectations she had for him. She also demanded that he read voraciously from their home filled with books... but never much food.... and write critical essays about those books he had been reading. Seemingly never satisfied with his efforts, she made him write, revise and rewrite.. constantly reminding him that to be successful in America, he would be judged and held to a much higher standard than the white people around him. When Kiese fell short of her expectations, she told him.... "excellence, education and accountability were requirements for keeping black boys in Mississippi healthy and safe from white folk."
Kiese began his memoir with a memory from when he was 11-years-old, 5'9" and 208 pounds. He was always acutely aware of the heaviness of his body.. and the way he would sweat, the fleshiness of his thighs and the stretch marks that ran over his body. In fact, his body is an anchor to his story.. a marker he uses to navigate through the memories of his childhood and young adulthood... memories involving his mother, grandmama, friends and girlfriends. The size of his body and his obsession with food, at first for the emotional comfort it provided him and later for the disgust and revulsion he began to feel toward it, is a main theme in this book. His body seems the central focus of the memoir but I came to realize that his struggle with food and weight and the size of his body were somehow more than they first appeared. Kiese Laymon's struggles with meeting his mother's expectations and his own expectations all seemed to be part of and maybe symbolic of a far greater struggle.
This memoir is about so many things... physical abuse, sexual abuse and violence, struggles with weight, self-starvation, addiction (both to food and gambling),and what it means to be a black boy growing up in Jackson, Mississippi. It's also a love letter from Kiese Laymon to his mother, despite or maybe because of all the struggles they had shared. Kiese's love and appreciation shone through in his words.....
"I will remember that I am your child, and really you are mine.... I will remind you that I did
not write this book to you simply because you are a black woman, or deeply southern, or because
you taught me to read and write. I wrote this book to you because, even though we harmed
each other as American parents and children tend to do, you did everything you could to make
sure the nation and our state did not harm their most vulnerable children... There will always
be scars on, and in, my body from where you harmed me. You will always have scars on, and
in your body from those who harmed you.... You and I have nothing and everything to be
ashamed of, but I am no longer ashamed of this heavy black body you helped create. I know
our beautiful, bruised black bodies are where we bend."
Kiese Laymon's memoir, I believe, is also a message to his country. His struggles as a black boy and now a black man are AMERICA'S struggles.... directly tied to the way that America lies to itself in that self-congratulatory way about its own inherent goodness... or 'exceptionalism'...; and its inability to acknowledge and reckon with its history of racism and oppression.. a history which isn't really in the past.... economic disempowerment, mass incarceration and the gunning down by police of young black men (Tamir Rice, in Cleveland) come to mind. But in writing these words, I finally realize where my discomfort in writing about this memoir comes from. I'm not the person who should be delivering this message. These are Kiese Laymon's words and he is so much more eloquent than I.....
"For a few seconds, I remembered that the most abusive parts of our nation obsessively neglect
yesterday while peddling in possibility. I remembered that we got here by refusing to honestly
remember together. I remembered that it was easier to promise than it was to reckon or change....
I finally understood there can be no liberation when our most intimate relationships are built
on- and really infected by-deceptions, abuse, misdirection, antiblackness, patriarchy and
bald-faced lies."
This book was not an easy read, despite its beautiful language. In fact, reading it caused me a great deal of distress. Kiese Laymon's words were not cruel so much as they were honest and pointed. His anger, hurt and shame were on display for the world to see. Read this book.... and if you're so inclined, listen to the audiobook. Kiese Laymon's words AND his voice are powerful.
January 9, 2019
This is one of the hardest reviews I've ever attempted to write. Probably because, as my friend Hannah so aptly put it in her own review, this book was not written for me. But that's what was so admirable about it. Kiese Laymon states clearly in the prologue to his memoir that he has no intention of writing a sanitized, palatable version of events; it's almost painful in its honesty but it's for this reason that I think this book is so crucial and necessary (especially for non-black readers).
Heavy is Laymon's visceral and fearless attempt at reckoning with a number of issues that have plagued him his entire life - his relationship with his mother whose uncompromising expectations for her son often resulted in abuse, his fraught relationship with his own body, addiction, trauma, poverty, education, masculinity, and ultimately what it means to be black in America. The honesty and nuance with which he examines anecdotes from his childhood, even more than the anecdotes themselves, make this an unforgettable read.
(4 stars instead of 5 because ratings are subjective and I never ever end up connecting with audiobooks as well as when I'm reading printed text, which isn't to say that Kiese Laymon did a bad job with the narration - on the contrary he was a joy to listen to - but I'm just not an auditory person. Anyway, this was brilliant.)
Heavy is Laymon's visceral and fearless attempt at reckoning with a number of issues that have plagued him his entire life - his relationship with his mother whose uncompromising expectations for her son often resulted in abuse, his fraught relationship with his own body, addiction, trauma, poverty, education, masculinity, and ultimately what it means to be black in America. The honesty and nuance with which he examines anecdotes from his childhood, even more than the anecdotes themselves, make this an unforgettable read.
(4 stars instead of 5 because ratings are subjective and I never ever end up connecting with audiobooks as well as when I'm reading printed text, which isn't to say that Kiese Laymon did a bad job with the narration - on the contrary he was a joy to listen to - but I'm just not an auditory person. Anyway, this was brilliant.)
March 24, 2019
“Heavy” is a……well, a very heavy memoir.
Kiese Laymon recounts his life growing up in a dysfunctional home as the heavyset black son of an exacting and troubled single mother in a Jackson, Mississippi. His mother is highly educated and demands excellence from her only son. She also has a heavy hand, and regularly beats Kiese when she feels he is not “striving for excellence, education and accountability when excellence, education and accountability were requirements for keeping the insides of black boys in Mississippi healthy and safe from white folk.”
Kiese’s childhood is filled with various kinds of trauma including sexual violence, abuse, broken relationships and addictions. As he becomes an adult and goes to college, he wages war with his body, swinging between obesity and near anorexia in an attempt to contain his demons. He judges himself brutally, as hard on himself as his mother has taught him to be. Kiese becomes an adjunct professor at Vassar and develops a gambling addiction, which also plagues his mother. Finally, at a breaking point, he and his mother agree to be honest with each other and stop lying and skirting around all the trauma and drama that lies between them.
The narrative of this memoir is Kiese writing to his mother, his attempt at honesty and vulnerability and it is RAW. It is not just the story of one fiercely demanding mother and her son, it is the story of being black in an America where you need to be “excellent, disciplined, elegant, emotionally contained, clean and perfect in the face of American white supremacy.”
Kiese writes, “I wrote this book to you because, even though we harmed each other as American parents and children tend to do, you did everything you could to make sure the nation and our state did not harm their most vulnerable children. I will tell you that white folk and white power often helped me feel gross, criminal, angry, and scared as a child, but they could never make me feel intellectually incapable because I was your child.”
There is a lot to absorb and ponder in this memoir. It made me really listen, it made me reflect, it made me feel, and I’m so glad I read it.
Kiese Laymon recounts his life growing up in a dysfunctional home as the heavyset black son of an exacting and troubled single mother in a Jackson, Mississippi. His mother is highly educated and demands excellence from her only son. She also has a heavy hand, and regularly beats Kiese when she feels he is not “striving for excellence, education and accountability when excellence, education and accountability were requirements for keeping the insides of black boys in Mississippi healthy and safe from white folk.”
Kiese’s childhood is filled with various kinds of trauma including sexual violence, abuse, broken relationships and addictions. As he becomes an adult and goes to college, he wages war with his body, swinging between obesity and near anorexia in an attempt to contain his demons. He judges himself brutally, as hard on himself as his mother has taught him to be. Kiese becomes an adjunct professor at Vassar and develops a gambling addiction, which also plagues his mother. Finally, at a breaking point, he and his mother agree to be honest with each other and stop lying and skirting around all the trauma and drama that lies between them.
The narrative of this memoir is Kiese writing to his mother, his attempt at honesty and vulnerability and it is RAW. It is not just the story of one fiercely demanding mother and her son, it is the story of being black in an America where you need to be “excellent, disciplined, elegant, emotionally contained, clean and perfect in the face of American white supremacy.”
Kiese writes, “I wrote this book to you because, even though we harmed each other as American parents and children tend to do, you did everything you could to make sure the nation and our state did not harm their most vulnerable children. I will tell you that white folk and white power often helped me feel gross, criminal, angry, and scared as a child, but they could never make me feel intellectually incapable because I was your child.”
There is a lot to absorb and ponder in this memoir. It made me really listen, it made me reflect, it made me feel, and I’m so glad I read it.
February 10, 2019
i read this in three days and i am a slow reader. i am a bit shell-shocked. i feel i've been thrown into the spin cycle of the washing machine i don't have and kept there for 72 hours. i also feel tremendously humbled. i cannot say anything about this book because i'm not black and i'm not american. but i'm trying to learn, and i hope to have learned at least a fraction of what kiese laymon is offering in this incredible memoir.
January 28, 2019
Now Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction - well-deserved!!
Kiese Laymon writes about his life growing up as a black man in Mississippi and how racism and violence result in lies and addiction - lies to oneself and all loved ones because the truth is too painfully overwhelming and the perceived feeling of defeat too shameful, addiction because it promises some degree of comfort (over-eating and drugs), control (starving), or freedom by surrender (gambling). Laymon's writing is dark, intense, poetic, angry, desperate, full of resolve, honest and intelligent - this is a great, great book.
Laymon, who is a professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi, was raised by a single mother who pushed him to excellence because she felt like this was the only way to survive the dangers of racism in the Deep South, violently beating her on son when he did not perform as she expected him to while she herself was abused by her boyfriend. This difficult mother-son-relationship is the main vein of the memoir, and Laymon mirrors both characters in their triumphs, fears and shortcomings. Both strive for careers in academia, struggle with institutional racism, have money issues, and keep secrets - and both know and defend the beauty and strength of black culture while also struggling with outside pressures that can, in a perverse and common psychological twist, easily lead to self-punishment. The forces aiming to destruct the black body can evoke defense mechanisms that ultimately serve the status quo - as the first step to stop that dynamic, Laymon calls for more honesty:
"I did not want to write about us. I wanted to write an American memoir. I wanted to write a lie. (...) no one in our family - and very few folk in this nation - has any desire to reckon with the weight of where we've been, which means no one in our family - and very few folk in this nation - wants to be free."
Read this book.
Kiese Laymon writes about his life growing up as a black man in Mississippi and how racism and violence result in lies and addiction - lies to oneself and all loved ones because the truth is too painfully overwhelming and the perceived feeling of defeat too shameful, addiction because it promises some degree of comfort (over-eating and drugs), control (starving), or freedom by surrender (gambling). Laymon's writing is dark, intense, poetic, angry, desperate, full of resolve, honest and intelligent - this is a great, great book.
Laymon, who is a professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi, was raised by a single mother who pushed him to excellence because she felt like this was the only way to survive the dangers of racism in the Deep South, violently beating her on son when he did not perform as she expected him to while she herself was abused by her boyfriend. This difficult mother-son-relationship is the main vein of the memoir, and Laymon mirrors both characters in their triumphs, fears and shortcomings. Both strive for careers in academia, struggle with institutional racism, have money issues, and keep secrets - and both know and defend the beauty and strength of black culture while also struggling with outside pressures that can, in a perverse and common psychological twist, easily lead to self-punishment. The forces aiming to destruct the black body can evoke defense mechanisms that ultimately serve the status quo - as the first step to stop that dynamic, Laymon calls for more honesty:
"I did not want to write about us. I wanted to write an American memoir. I wanted to write a lie. (...) no one in our family - and very few folk in this nation - has any desire to reckon with the weight of where we've been, which means no one in our family - and very few folk in this nation - wants to be free."
Read this book.
June 26, 2020
This book is amazing. Direct. Vulnerable. So super smart. It is vast in all the thing it discusses and intersectional. Race. Gender. Addiction. Body. Blackness. This book is major. Memoir at its best.
REREAD: still incredible. Still blown away by his writing. I listened this time through and his rhythm and style are even more clear in listening to the book. I found more humor and more fullness in listening. I liked reading it more because it felt more intimate but listening helped to fill out the book in many places. Laymon is a treasure.
REREAD: still incredible. Still blown away by his writing. I listened this time through and his rhythm and style are even more clear in listening to the book. I found more humor and more fullness in listening. I liked reading it more because it felt more intimate but listening helped to fill out the book in many places. Laymon is a treasure.
November 13, 2018
"I wanted to write a lie. You wanted to read a lie. I wrote this to you instead because I am your child, and you are mine. You are also my mother and I am your son. Please do not be mad at me, Mamma. I am just trying to put you where I bend. I am just trying to put us where we bend."
Mother's Response:These Are Your Memories
Typically when I read a memoir I am trying to see through the other person's eyes, attempting to understand how their past bought them to where they are now. At times I struggle with not being judgmental of their choices. I am more mature now. I recognize that life is always viewed better from afar, through hindsight. That growth notwithstanding, Heavy is an honest account that exposes not only the author's vulnerabilities but the reader's as well.
" I share with painters the desire to put a three-dimensional picture on a one-dimensional surface."
I found myself not as an outsider looking in but felt as if I had been dropped into the fray and was experiencing the book up close. As a black academic I couldn't help but read Layman's words and hear the echo of my own sons' voices. I wondered how many times while I was in the lab that my children felt unsafe. How many times did I think they were tucked safely away that they could have possibly been exposed to sexual violence? How many secrets have they kept for fear of hurting me. I was scared to ponder about when my love may have caused them pain. Layman lays his life bare before us with all of its ugly truths. In his eloquent rendering he is not a martyr nor his mother a monster. They are two people who love each other deeply, imperfectly.
November 10, 2019
WHAT IN THE WORLD. I am truly not (yet? ever?) ready to say anything smart about this one. Heavy is the sort of memoir that you don't feel "done" with, even after reaching the last page, and it strips away the notion that you will find words anywhere close to as precise as the author's.
For me, there are few books that get difficult, dependent parent-child relationships so RIGHT that every other paragraph has my jaw on the floor. I felt this way last year with A Place for Us, another book that is (in large part) about the delayed coming-of-age stories of POC children who are expected to carry themselves as adults long before their time. Kiese Laymon's grace with addressing this experience, the legacy of American racism in his Southern and Northern communities, and the bodily repercussions that have come out of it, is something I've never seen before.
He is a true southerner, in that his respect for his elders shines through every page of this memoir. He is also a true millennial, part of a generation that loves our relatives too much to not explore the trauma we’ve experienced under their care. He shows that respect can also ask questions, that loyalty can inspire you to seek the truth, and that all of this is nowhere near enough, but sometimes all we have. I rooted for everyone in this book, no matter how much difficult information he shared—maybe *because* he was able to share his love for and challenges with his kin, without calling either a lie.
I can't entirely explain how important this was to me right now, but I'm sure most everyone who reads it will know exactly what I mean.
For me, there are few books that get difficult, dependent parent-child relationships so RIGHT that every other paragraph has my jaw on the floor. I felt this way last year with A Place for Us, another book that is (in large part) about the delayed coming-of-age stories of POC children who are expected to carry themselves as adults long before their time. Kiese Laymon's grace with addressing this experience, the legacy of American racism in his Southern and Northern communities, and the bodily repercussions that have come out of it, is something I've never seen before.
He is a true southerner, in that his respect for his elders shines through every page of this memoir. He is also a true millennial, part of a generation that loves our relatives too much to not explore the trauma we’ve experienced under their care. He shows that respect can also ask questions, that loyalty can inspire you to seek the truth, and that all of this is nowhere near enough, but sometimes all we have. I rooted for everyone in this book, no matter how much difficult information he shared—maybe *because* he was able to share his love for and challenges with his kin, without calling either a lie.
I can't entirely explain how important this was to me right now, but I'm sure most everyone who reads it will know exactly what I mean.
January 10, 2019
WOW, what a book! How do you call something so heartbreaking BRILLIANT? The writing is stunning, the vulernability on display is breathtaking and the delivery is masterful. There were times that I forgot I was reading a memoir because it reads like the perfect novel.
Kiese Laymon delves into many “heavy” topics -- the struggle of living life as a man in a black body, his weight, abuse, sex, racism, gambling, education, friendships & family dynamics. I don't think there was a topic that was not touched in this deeply raw memoir.
Laymon writes in second person, addressing himself to his mother unearthing secrets and lies that they buried throughout their lives.
Put this on your TBR list. I’m recommending it to everyone!!
Kiese Laymon delves into many “heavy” topics -- the struggle of living life as a man in a black body, his weight, abuse, sex, racism, gambling, education, friendships & family dynamics. I don't think there was a topic that was not touched in this deeply raw memoir.
Laymon writes in second person, addressing himself to his mother unearthing secrets and lies that they buried throughout their lives.
Put this on your TBR list. I’m recommending it to everyone!!
February 16, 2019
[4+] Kiese Laymon writes about his experiences with such immediacy that I felt as if I knew him when he was 9, 10, 16, 18, 21, 30 etc. There is no distance, he is living it on the pages. He shares the heaviness of his complicated relationship with his mother, his body, the white world around him in a way both sorrowful and graceful. I hope there is more to come from him. The audiobook was powerfully read by the author.
February 23, 2022
As the title implies, Kiese Laymon's Heavy is not a light read. He describes his abusive childhood and troubled growing up in poetically and in emotionally charged terms. There are excellent points made about racism and feminism amid the violence and despair. I am glad that Kiese survived the many trials and tribulations to make this exceptional memoir.
Recommended article about this book: https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/657824...
Recommended article about this book: https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/657824...
June 18, 2020
I had seen Laymon at a reading a while ago, not having read his book. He was funny and eloquent, but then, to be honest, some other book caught my eye, and I forgot all about Heavy. My fellow bookworms will understand;-) I am glad, however, that I finally did pick it up. I am not usually a fan of essays or short stories, but Laymon has a very engaging, almost narrative style and though some of his essays spoke to me more than others, it was a very readable collection, highlighting aspects of the author's experience as Black man in this country, both in a very personal sense and as an exploration of his role in the greater scheme of things.
Find more reviews and bookish fun at http://www.princessandpen.com
Find more reviews and bookish fun at http://www.princessandpen.com
January 6, 2020
Though I read this in May (actually I listened to it, read by the author in a voice that is perfection), I am realizing as I prepare my 2019 Year in Review that I never wrote a review for this moving memoir. I will make it a goal to listen to this again in 2020 and properly review it. It was a stand out and the best memoir I read all year.
October 24, 2019
I appreciate the raw honesty Kiese Laymon wrote with in Heavy: An American Memoir. This book is dark and intense, delving into difficult relationships Kiese has with family, with himself, and with others. Trauma and lies are rampant yet so is Kiese’s authenticity. His ability to rise above the challenging circumstances he is faced with time and time again was admirable. Heavy confirms Kiese’s clear talent as a writer.
January 7, 2019
I don't hate to be the skunk in this party where everyone seems to believe this is a great book. It is not! This is Ta nehisi coates 2.0. America is going through a period of victim-hood and self flagellation that will only result in the evisceration of the experiment that Abraham Lincoln called a government 'of the people, by the people and for the people.' Which goes back to a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin when he was asked what kind of government the founders had created: "A Republic if you can keep it" he purportedly said. This book is just another manifestation of what happens when the 'people' are given democracy, which is to say, in this case: they whine. Kiese Laymon whines about his less than perfect childhood, he whines about his weight, he whines about white people, he whines about not getting laid enough, and last but not least, he whines about America and it's treatment of black people.
It is only people who are oblivious of the world outside America who can write such blind and baseless diatribes and be considered masterpieces by the 'reading elite'. It must be the result of America being such a successful nation in providing for its citizens where freedom of speech, an American invention, becomes an exercise in self loathing, in the case of Laymon and Coates, the loathing of everything that has to do with whiteness and Americaness. America has given so much to it's children that it has spoiled them to the point that they actually believe that this nation is the most egregious manifestation of oppression in the history of the world.
The ironic thing here is that the best African American authors are in the past, when America was not living up to it's ideals. Booker T. Washington, Richard Wright, W.E.B. Dubois, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, to name a few. This is not great writing. It is nothing less than a fat boy looking for excuses to blame others for his struggles and imperfections. It's called life, sir. You are a succesful black man in America, you have achieved your dream of doing something you love for a living and get paid a lot of money for it. Do you know how many white people in America are that fortunate? You want to see oppression Mr. Laymon, try to get out sometimes and don't bury your ostrich head in books alone. Go to Mexico, go to Cuba, go to any country in Africa, go to the Muslim nations where those Muslims you portray as victims of America in your book come from. Then perhaps you will have a different perspective, then you might grow up and learn how not be so self absorbed.
It is only people who are oblivious of the world outside America who can write such blind and baseless diatribes and be considered masterpieces by the 'reading elite'. It must be the result of America being such a successful nation in providing for its citizens where freedom of speech, an American invention, becomes an exercise in self loathing, in the case of Laymon and Coates, the loathing of everything that has to do with whiteness and Americaness. America has given so much to it's children that it has spoiled them to the point that they actually believe that this nation is the most egregious manifestation of oppression in the history of the world.
The ironic thing here is that the best African American authors are in the past, when America was not living up to it's ideals. Booker T. Washington, Richard Wright, W.E.B. Dubois, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, to name a few. This is not great writing. It is nothing less than a fat boy looking for excuses to blame others for his struggles and imperfections. It's called life, sir. You are a succesful black man in America, you have achieved your dream of doing something you love for a living and get paid a lot of money for it. Do you know how many white people in America are that fortunate? You want to see oppression Mr. Laymon, try to get out sometimes and don't bury your ostrich head in books alone. Go to Mexico, go to Cuba, go to any country in Africa, go to the Muslim nations where those Muslims you portray as victims of America in your book come from. Then perhaps you will have a different perspective, then you might grow up and learn how not be so self absorbed.
January 6, 2020
Questo libro è un piccolo gioiello. Il giusto peso non è solo un memoir, è una grande metafora di un intero popolo, di un’intera nazione: “Volevo che il libro si aprisse e si chiudesse con l’idea che, se gli americani bianchi cominciassero a controllare la loro insaziabile fame di americani neri che soffrono, e noialtri controllassimo la nostra insaziabile fame di cibo spazzatura, potremmo inaugurare tutti insieme una nuova era di prosperità. Volevo dare vita a una fantastica rappresentazione letteraria.”
“in quel momento mi domandai se esistesse un aggettivo per definire quelle storie piene di gente che all’inizio era contenta e poi s’intristiva. «Contentristi», senza trattino, era la parola che usavo dentro di me. Raccontare storie contentristi su eventi appena accaduti era effettivamente l’unica cosa in cui erano bravi i ragazzi più grandi a casa di Beulah Beauford.”
Kiese davanti alla sua conduzione prova a reagire: “Qualsiasi vero cambiamento implica la disgregazione del mondo come lo abbiamo sempre conosciuto, la perdita di tutto ciò che ci dava un’identità, la fine di ogni sicurezza.”
“La versione più pesante di me era il passato. Il presente era il mio corpo attuale. Non c’era limite a quanto potevo diventare leggero, e sapevo di dover vivere proiettato verso il futuro.”
I suoi punti di riferimento sono stati Toni Morrison (Amatissima), Toni Cade Bambara (Gorilla, amore mio), Alice Walker (Il colore viola) e tanti altri: e attraverso questi tre libri che ho amato molto, Kiese Laymon dà enorme spessore alle letture di questo 2020.
La scrittura è ipnotica, la storia ti spezza dentro, ma ti dà anche gli strumenti per ricostruirti. Mi è venuto in mente Fame di Roxane Gay, leggendolo, sebbene Il giusto peso sia di gran lunga superiore.
“Su questo sto lavorando, e finalmente mi rendo conto che non può esserci liberazione se i nostri rapporti più intimi si basano – e si modulano – su inganno, abusi, disinformazione, antinerità, patriarcato e smaccate bugie. Non insegnarmi questo sarebbe stato l’abuso più grande che potessi farmi.”
“Ti offrirò il cuore. Ti offrirò la testa. Ti offrirò il mio corpo, la mia immaginazione e i miei ricordi. Ti chiederò di darci la forza di portare avanti un processo di guarigione più efficace. Se cadiamo, dacci la forza di cadere insieme, onestamente e appassionatamente.”
“Porterò per sempre addosso, fuori e dentro di me, i segni dei colpi che mi hai inferto. Porterai per sempre addosso, fuori e dentro di te, i segni dei colpi che ti ho inferto. Io e te non abbiamo nulla di cui vergognarci e dovremmo vergognarci di ogni cosa, ma non provo più imbarazzo per questo corpo pesante che hai contribuito a plasmare. Ho capito dove è passato il mio bel corpo ferito.”
Questa non è una recensione. È un invito spassionato a leggere questo bellissimo libro.
“in quel momento mi domandai se esistesse un aggettivo per definire quelle storie piene di gente che all’inizio era contenta e poi s’intristiva. «Contentristi», senza trattino, era la parola che usavo dentro di me. Raccontare storie contentristi su eventi appena accaduti era effettivamente l’unica cosa in cui erano bravi i ragazzi più grandi a casa di Beulah Beauford.”
Kiese davanti alla sua conduzione prova a reagire: “Qualsiasi vero cambiamento implica la disgregazione del mondo come lo abbiamo sempre conosciuto, la perdita di tutto ciò che ci dava un’identità, la fine di ogni sicurezza.”
“La versione più pesante di me era il passato. Il presente era il mio corpo attuale. Non c’era limite a quanto potevo diventare leggero, e sapevo di dover vivere proiettato verso il futuro.”
I suoi punti di riferimento sono stati Toni Morrison (Amatissima), Toni Cade Bambara (Gorilla, amore mio), Alice Walker (Il colore viola) e tanti altri: e attraverso questi tre libri che ho amato molto, Kiese Laymon dà enorme spessore alle letture di questo 2020.
La scrittura è ipnotica, la storia ti spezza dentro, ma ti dà anche gli strumenti per ricostruirti. Mi è venuto in mente Fame di Roxane Gay, leggendolo, sebbene Il giusto peso sia di gran lunga superiore.
“Su questo sto lavorando, e finalmente mi rendo conto che non può esserci liberazione se i nostri rapporti più intimi si basano – e si modulano – su inganno, abusi, disinformazione, antinerità, patriarcato e smaccate bugie. Non insegnarmi questo sarebbe stato l’abuso più grande che potessi farmi.”
“Ti offrirò il cuore. Ti offrirò la testa. Ti offrirò il mio corpo, la mia immaginazione e i miei ricordi. Ti chiederò di darci la forza di portare avanti un processo di guarigione più efficace. Se cadiamo, dacci la forza di cadere insieme, onestamente e appassionatamente.”
“Porterò per sempre addosso, fuori e dentro di me, i segni dei colpi che mi hai inferto. Porterai per sempre addosso, fuori e dentro di te, i segni dei colpi che ti ho inferto. Io e te non abbiamo nulla di cui vergognarci e dovremmo vergognarci di ogni cosa, ma non provo più imbarazzo per questo corpo pesante che hai contribuito a plasmare. Ho capito dove è passato il mio bel corpo ferito.”
Questa non è una recensione. È un invito spassionato a leggere questo bellissimo libro.
July 31, 2021
"Heavy" is one of those multilayered titles that once you've read the book, you look back on and think, ah. I see what you did there. A play on the author's physical body, traumatic life experiences, and the psychic toll of being a Black man in America, "Heavy" is a difficult but rewarding memoir to read. I think the decision to frame his story as an address to the mother with whom he has a complicated relationship makes this particularly special. This is both thought provoking and a great example of a memoir as literary art
April 17, 2021
Secrets can be heavy,. Secrets carry consequences for the body, the mind, the soul. The better memoirs are willing to unburden, willing to make sense of it on the page.
You turn the page in a great memoir and feel as if you see the writer more clearly, as if you've walked with the writer and also made sense of some personal, yet deeply universal challenge.
I truly enjoyed reading this memoir, enjoyed making sense of this intense and complex familial relationship, enjoyed the layered art on the page, the sensitivity to structure, enjoyed noticing how repetition shaped the style of this conversation between son and mother.
I read Laymon's essay collection recently and it prompted me to finally read this 2018 New York Times Notable Book, which has been saved on my shelf for years.
I read and drew closer to this bookish black man trying to make his way in a world where he feels displaced and isolated. I felt oneness with the narrator as he laid bare his vulnerabilities and tried to make sense of things like: insecurities about weight, insecurities with loving someone fully and completely, insecurities with loving himself.
How can one love his body when the body has seen too much, when that black body is constantly viewed as a threat, when the body still must recover from physical and racial trauma? How does one value one's contribution when black intellectualism remains pinned beneath the the white gaze?
Each time I read Laymon's works, I close the book and do something you do when you've just ended a phone call with a friend: check my music playlist, or revisit Gorilla, My Love, which I read five years ago.
One of my dreams has been to build a substantial home library. I grew up with physical books and they are slowly disappearing from the fabric of home life. Since my library has grown over the years, one of my personal goals has been to distill, sometimes by genre, my reasoning for the books that sit on my favorite shelves or the writers who have a unique space in my repertoire. It's not as if there needs to be any explanation for such an instinctual feeling. Yet, I think I'm now convinced: My favorite writers stay in intimate conversation with me while I read and even after I'm done reading.
You turn the page in a great memoir and feel as if you see the writer more clearly, as if you've walked with the writer and also made sense of some personal, yet deeply universal challenge.
I truly enjoyed reading this memoir, enjoyed making sense of this intense and complex familial relationship, enjoyed the layered art on the page, the sensitivity to structure, enjoyed noticing how repetition shaped the style of this conversation between son and mother.
I read Laymon's essay collection recently and it prompted me to finally read this 2018 New York Times Notable Book, which has been saved on my shelf for years.
I read and drew closer to this bookish black man trying to make his way in a world where he feels displaced and isolated. I felt oneness with the narrator as he laid bare his vulnerabilities and tried to make sense of things like: insecurities about weight, insecurities with loving someone fully and completely, insecurities with loving himself.
How can one love his body when the body has seen too much, when that black body is constantly viewed as a threat, when the body still must recover from physical and racial trauma? How does one value one's contribution when black intellectualism remains pinned beneath the the white gaze?
Each time I read Laymon's works, I close the book and do something you do when you've just ended a phone call with a friend: check my music playlist, or revisit Gorilla, My Love, which I read five years ago.
One of my dreams has been to build a substantial home library. I grew up with physical books and they are slowly disappearing from the fabric of home life. Since my library has grown over the years, one of my personal goals has been to distill, sometimes by genre, my reasoning for the books that sit on my favorite shelves or the writers who have a unique space in my repertoire. It's not as if there needs to be any explanation for such an instinctual feeling. Yet, I think I'm now convinced: My favorite writers stay in intimate conversation with me while I read and even after I'm done reading.
July 26, 2019
Kiese Laymon knows the debilitating effects of being overweight, and the never-ending battle of diets and exercise to lose the extra pounds. But, for much of this memoir, he is a very heavy man. It causes him to be shy and insecure.
Then there is the heavy expectations his mother has for him to achieve excellence and a fine education. She insists that he read books—lots of books, and write about them. She beat him regularly when he fell short of her expectations. And he did fall short—often deliberately [a bit of teenage rebellion maybe].
Being a black student in Mississippi created its own heavy burden. It was assumed more than once that he must have cheated when he achieved high marks on his work. He was even expelled from one college for stealing the Red Badge of Courage from the library. This contrasts markedly with the punishment given to a white student (at another college Laymon was teaching at) when found with a huge drug stash. That student spun a preposterous tale claiming he was forced to take the drugs by some anonymous man. For that, he received a ‘slap on the wrist’!
Laymon’s candid, beautifully written memoir seeks to speak the truth, even when it reflects badly on his own character. The result is a very human story that speaks to all of us. Recommend.
Then there is the heavy expectations his mother has for him to achieve excellence and a fine education. She insists that he read books—lots of books, and write about them. She beat him regularly when he fell short of her expectations. And he did fall short—often deliberately [a bit of teenage rebellion maybe].
Being a black student in Mississippi created its own heavy burden. It was assumed more than once that he must have cheated when he achieved high marks on his work. He was even expelled from one college for stealing the Red Badge of Courage from the library. This contrasts markedly with the punishment given to a white student (at another college Laymon was teaching at) when found with a huge drug stash. That student spun a preposterous tale claiming he was forced to take the drugs by some anonymous man. For that, he received a ‘slap on the wrist’!
Laymon’s candid, beautifully written memoir seeks to speak the truth, even when it reflects badly on his own character. The result is a very human story that speaks to all of us. Recommend.
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