'In this powerful and provocative memoir, Kiese Laymon fearlessly 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.

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 of us know how to responsibly love'. 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 family, weight, sex, gambling, and writing. 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. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of living in a country wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we've been.

Through self-exploration, storytelling, and honest conversation with family and friends, Heavy seeks to bring what has been hidden into the light and to reckon with all of its myriad sources, from the most intimate-a mother-child relationship-to the most universal-a society that has undervalued and abused black bodies for centuries'. He writes of his own eating disorder and gambling addiction as well as similar issues that run throughout his family. 'Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about the physical manifestations of violence, grief, trauma, and abuse on his own body.

Kiese laymon heavy