“ Heavy is an apt title for this memoir, which covers not only physical obesity—the author weighed 300 pounds as a teenager—but also the weight of systemic racism and white supremacy, and the power of a mother’s love.” –Emily Temple, Literary Hub. Some examples include coming-of-age memoirs, like Kiese Laymon’s “ Heavy” or Daisy Hernandez’s “ A Cup of Water Under My Bed,” or memoirs that are narrowly focused, like Lori Gottleib’s “ Maybe You Should Talk to Someone,” or Jennifer Pastiloff’s “ On Being Human.”.
Kiese Laymon
Laymon is the narrator and protagonist of his memoir. He lays out a chronological account designed to elicit sympathy and deliver a call to action. He wants his readers to recognize, along with him, how racism in America has corrupted the opportunity of black men and women in devastating ways. Throughout the text, he focuses upon his relationship to academia -- heavily influenced by his mom's high expectations, -- his struggle to maintain a healthy weight, and his experience of violence and oppression in the South. Through his writing career Laymon has found an outlet for his opinions.
Best Memoirs To Read
Laymon's Mother
She is the real subject of this book, to whom Laymon addresses his writing. As a defense against racism and oppression in Mississippi, she turned to the bastion of academia. She has earned a Ph.D and demands similar excellence from Laymon, despite enforcing these expectations through the very patterns of violence she was hoping to spare him in the end. She is the victim of domestic violence as well as racially motivated hatred in her community, but she is a strong woman who refuses to bend. Her lasting impact in her son's life leaves him both confused and compelled to respond.
Laymon's Gradmother
She plays a very small role in the book. She embodies the oppressed black woman in Laymon's imagination. Her story is tragic; she was raped by the local sheriff when she was young.
Laymon's Father
His father is not a major player in Laymon's life. To his son, he represents a continuation of oppression. He beats Laymon's mom and remains largely absent from their daily lives.
Best African American Memoirs
In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does 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.
Mother Of Kiese Laymon
Traveling Heavy A Memoir In Between Journeys
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.