Years later, Heavy masterfully wields language to explore the part words play in constructing-and deconstructing-the weighty illogic of racism that attempts to render him speechless.Īlthough Heavy begins, “I did not want to write to you… I wanted to write an American memoir,” Laymon frames his story as a letter to his mother.

A young Laymon must weather frustrated attempts to put these experiences into words under the tutelage of a beloved but abusive parent. To treat this awareness as a source of authority, Laymon must also navigate the prevailing conclusion that his body is trying to destroy him, either due to the body’s mere existence in a white supremacist nation bent on obliterating African American men, or through the acts of self-harm, addiction, and negation the body manifests in order to counter its expectation of powerlessness. Crucially, Heavy positions somatic awareness as a reference-point for generating the language to discuss trauma, failed love, and injustice. What is weight? In Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon suggests that it depends on whether you see excess or abundance flesh or a body baggage, or the story of a young man navigating a fractured relationship with his mother and his country.

Heavy an american memoir book review