Kiese Laymon - Heavy: An American Memoir

Laymon’s novel, Long Division, was named to several Best Of lists in 2013 and his collection of autobiographical essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, showed him as a powerful social and cultural commentator. In his new memoir, he expands on the experiences he discussed in his earlier works, talking bluntly and honestly about growing up with racism, income disparity, addiction, eating disorders, and a complicated mother-son dynamic. Often directly addressing his mother—a divorced, impoverished woman who became a political science professor at Jackson State—Laymon makes his story immediate and vivid, from his problems with weight, ostracism, violence, and gambling to his views on women and politics.