Heavy : an American memoir

Title:

Author:

Laymon, Kiese, author.

Personal Author:

Laymon, Kiese, author.

ISBN:

9781501125652

Edition:

First Scribner hardcover edition.

Physical Description:

xiv, 241 pages ; 22 cm

Contents:

Prologue: been -- Boy man -- Black abundance -- Home worked -- Addict Americans -- Epilogue: bend.

Abstract:

"Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about the physical manifestations of violence, grief, trauma, and abuse on his own body. He writes of his own eating disorder and gambling addiction as well as similar issues that run throughout his family. Through self-exploration, storytelling, and honest conversation with family and friends, Heavy seeks to bring what has been hidden into the light and to reckon with all of its myriad sources, from the most intimate--a mother-child relationship--to the most universal--a society that has undervalued and abused black bodies for centuries"-- Provided by publisher.

Personal Subject:

Laymon, Kiese-Family.

Laymon, Kiese.

Subject Term:

African Americans -- Biography.

Compulsive gamblers -- Biography.

Eating disorders -- Patients -- Biography.

Mother and child.

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	305.896 L427 X	Searching... Unknown
Searching... North Avenue	Book	305.896 L427 X	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Westover Hills	Book	305.896 L427 X	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

*Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times , Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly , Buzzfeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly , and The New York Times Critics *

*WINNER of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and FINALIST for the Kirkus Prize *

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.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A challenging memoir about black-white relations, income inequality, mother-son dynamics, Mississippi byways, lack of personal self-control, education from kindergarten through graduate school, and so much more.Laymon (English and Creative Writing/Univ. of Mississippi; How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, 2013, etc.) skillfully couches his provocative subject matter in language that is pyrotechnic and unmistakably his own. He also uses an intriguing narrative form, directly addressing his divorced mother, a poverty-stricken single woman who became a political science professor at Jackson State University. As an obese black youngster, the author had to learn to absorb cruelty not only because of his size, but also because of his dark skin. The relentlessness of his mother's loveshe expected academic and behavioral perfection and employed corporal punishment with a beltshaped Laymon's character in ways both obvious and subtle. One of the main elements of the memoir is his resentment at white privilege and his techniques to counter it. "Every time you said my particular brand of hardheadedness and white Mississippian's brutal desire for black suffering were recipes for an early death, institutionalization, or incarceration, I knew you were right," writes the author. Of all the secondary themes, the impact of addictionfood, gambling, and drug use, but especially foodranks next. Laymon hated himself for topping 300 pounds as a teenager. Then he got fanatical with exercise and near starvation, dropping down to 170followed by a relapse of sorts as he began to approach 300 again. Far more than just the physical aspect, the weight he carries also derives from the burdens placed on him by a racist society, by his mother and his loving grandmother, and even by himself. At times, the author examines his complicated romantic and sexual relationships, and he also delves insightfully into politics, literature, feminism, and injustice, among other topics.A dynamic memoir that is unsettling in all the best ways. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.