Review of Heavy: An American Memoir, by Kiese Laymon
Format: Audiobook narrated by the author.
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Heavy is an unveiled, first-person account of a Black male
growing up in a single parent family, in poverty, in Jackson, Mississippi in
the 1980s. Kiese Laymon is tall and overweight for his twelve years. He’s
obsessed with his weight and self conscious. Laymon is supposed to be watched
while his mother is at work, but there is no supervision. He deeply empathizes
with a young teen girl who is forced into sexual acts by older boys. This helps
to shape Laymon’s values.
Laymon’s relationship with his divorced mother is unhealthy
for both of them, emotionally and physically as well. His mother is intelligent
and holds a doctorate degree, yet it seems she can’t pay the bills and keep
food in the house on her teacher’s salary. She insists that Laymon read books
and write reports, which usually must contain an element of overcoming White
oppression. Laymon is constantly told he must rise up against the White man,
and during the highly charged atmosphere of the race riots surrounding the
Rodney King beating, both Laymon and the rest of society seem primed to erupt.
There’s so much dysfunction in Laymon’s life it is easier to
ask, what’s right with this picture?
This is a difficult book to read, because it is
heartbreakingly honest. How many millions of Black youth are trying to survive
in those same conditions – or worse – right now?
