*Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times*
*Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and Finalist for the Kirkus Prize*
*Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, BuzzFeed, and more* The powerful, provocative, award-winning, and universally lauded memoir by genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon.
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 time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. Heavy is a "gorgeous, gutting...generous" (The New York Times) memoir that combines personal stories with piercing intellect to reflect both on the strife of American society and on Laymon's experiences with abuse. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks 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 book for people who appreciated Roxane Gay's memoir Hunger" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel), Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family through years of haunting implosions and long reverberations. "You won't be able to put [this memoir] down...It is packed with reminders of how black dreams get skewed and deferred, yet are also pregnant with the possibility that a kind of redemption may lie in intimate grappling with black realities" (The Atlantic).
About the Author :
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of the year by The New York Times. Laymon's bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. Laymon is the recipient of 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. He is the founder of The Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative, a program based out of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, aimed at aiding young people in Jackson get more comfortable reading, writing, revising, and sharing on their own terms, in their own communities. He is the cohost of Reckon True Stories with Deesha Philyaw. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.
Review :
"Heavy does what good memoirs do: it takes the personal and makes it universal. It is about the weight we bear--physical and metaphorical--about race and racism, about carving a sense of self in a senseless place. Heavy will not leave you lightly. It will stick. It will hurt. But in a way we need, the way--in this time of hopelessness--that breeds the belief that we can."
--Ira Sukrungruang, Kenyon Review "Heavy's title is appropriate. This book is crushing, and the author is writing to his novel so the memoir feels that much more personal as you go through his life in and out of Jackson, from childhood to adulthood... [it] makes you confront uncomfortable realities about racism in America."
--The Summer Evergreen
"[Heavy] explores the impact that lies, secrets and deception have on a black body and family, as well as a nation."
--CNET, "Black Lives Matter: Movies, TV shows and books on systemic racism"
"With a story that lives up to its name, this memoir explores the many complex forces at play in Laymon's life growing up as a Black man in Mississippi. Through it all, the author confronts multiple traumas with openness and love, in a book that won't leave your mind anytime soon."
--Good Housekeeping
"In this harrowing and courageous memoir, Laymon explores the multifold traumas of inhabiting a black body, as seen through the lens of his complicated and abusive upbringing in Jackson, Mississippi. Yet the great miracle of this memoir isn't its evocation of the Deep South, its exploration of trauma, nor its condemnation of our fat-phobic culture--rather, the great miracle is Laymon's ability to bear love and light toward all the complicated sources of pain in his life, making for a searing and cathartic read."
--Esquire
"The most exciting kinds of memoirs are the ones that throw you into the story of a life even while encouraging you to step back and consider the art of its framing. Heavy is one of the best of the bunch. Kiese Laymon's writing about size and race, addiction and ambition in America is nothing less than thrilling -- every sentence sings."
--Maris Kreizman, Vulture, 6 New Paperbacks You Should Read Right Now "Laymon won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for this harrowing but tender memoir, in which he untangles his complex relationships with his mother and his Southern family roots."
--David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly, The 25 Best New Paperbacks to Check Out This Spring
"A masterclass in memoir...a book this impactful is not going anywhere."
--MSNBC, Velshi Banned Book Club
