Heavy Heavy

Heavy

An American Memoir

    • 4.5 • 355 Ratings
    • $12.99

Publisher Description

*Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times*

*Named a Best Book of the Year 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*

In this powerful, provocative, and universally lauded memoir—winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and finalist for the Kirkus Prize—genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon “provocatively meditates on his trauma growing up as a black man, and in turn crafts an essential polemic against American moral rot” (Entertainment Weekly).

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).

GENRE
Biographies & Memoirs
RELEASED
2018
October 16
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
256
Pages
PUBLISHER
Scribner
SELLER
Simon & Schuster Digital Sales LLC
SIZE
4.1
MB

Customer Reviews

Kbthemayor ,

Emotional Roller Coaster

This book is powerful. Powerfully written and executed. The highest highs and lowest lows meet at the intersection of hope. Of honesty. Of Identity. Pain meets peace in this book. Maybe not peace. But whatever the feeling awareness brings. The trek through the relationships between persons, place and things is bold—raw! This is a great read!

k10ca ,

So grateful i got to read this

Thank you for writing your memoir and letting me read it. It’s had a profound impact on me.

rikibcarignan ,

Amazing read

I loved reading this book!

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