Heavy: An American Memoir

Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon

Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal & Kirkus Prize Finalist

In this powerful & provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist & novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, & deception does to a black body, a black family, & 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 & on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion & 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 & honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated & 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, & ultimately gambling. 

By attempting to name secrets & lies he & his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, & us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, & 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, & family that begins with a confusing childhood — & continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions & long reverberations.