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Heavy: An American Memoir
Contributor(s): Laymon, Kiese (Read by)
ISBN: 1508265836     ISBN-13: 9781508265832
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
OUR PRICE:   $31.49  
Product Type: Compact Disc - Other Formats
Published: October 2018
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs
- Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional - General
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies
Dewey: B
Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.8" W x 5.6" (0.35 lbs)
Themes:
- Ethnic Orientation - African American
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Provocative and genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon sets out to lose 150 pounds in a year, talks with his mother and grandmother about their relationships to weight in America-and chronicles what a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception do 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.


Contributor Bio(s): Laymon, Kiese: - Born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, Kiese Laymon, Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Mississippi, is the author of the novel, Long Division and a collection of essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. He is also the author of the memoir Heavy.