Heavy

Heavy, Kiese Laymon

I came in to this book with no expectations or knowledge. The author, Kiese Laymon, spoke at a brown bag/learning event at my work but I missed It. Others who attended voted for this for our office book club, but I hadn’t heard of Laymon, heard him speak, or read his previous works. So other than it was a memoir, and dealt some with weight, I really didn’t know what I was getting in to.

The memoir is addressed to Laymon’s mother, a PhD candidate, intellectual, and sometime TV presenter; gambling addict; Black woman in Mississippi; domestic violence victim; and someone who viciously beats her child for infractions large and small. The mother is unnamed but a constant character in the book, which is written in the first person but told in the second as his mother is only addressed as ‘you’ throughout. She looms large, as does her mother, his Grandmama, his primary source of love and comfort and anchor in the book.

As may be expected the memoir deals with many difficult topics. It starts with his vivid memory of a gang rape – although not called such – at a neighbor’s house, his own sexual abuse –although not called as such—by his babysitter, one of his mother’s students, the way he drowns out his memories with eating, and the violent punishment he receives from his mother for leaving his neighbor’s house early when he was supposed to be there reading. It follows his own life and memories of growing up, primarily with violence, but also with very fun stories of the celebration of life and ‘Black abundance’ he creates with his friends in middle and high school. He goes to Millsaps, a small college in Mississippi, begins writing, angers the primarily White administration and student body, and is ultimately expelled for taking a book out of the library without checking it out.

It also follows his journey from this, to Oberlin college, to teaching at Vassar. It follows his successful writing and teaching career, the racism he encounters and sees. It follows his mother’s and his own gambling addictions and how it has destroyed them. And throughout the book is woven his own body issues and the ways he continuously sought comfort and punishment through gaining and losing weight. For those who avoid such things, please be aware that weight is discussed throughout, in a running total of his own weight at various ages and how much weight he has lost and gained through different efforts.

It was a powerful and memorable book, for sure. It was also not something I would have read on my own, and certainly not read all the way through if I had picked it up. I didn’t enjoy it. For one thing, I found the book very difficult to follow. It gets a bit more clear later on, but in the early half in particular it jumped around to different events and topics and it was hard for me to find a handle to hold to, and to keep track of the story. Another piece of my own reaction might be the books I’ve read before. I don’t love memoirs to begin with. And this is hard to review because I don’t want to be dismissive of someone else’s pain or say it’s not entertaining enough for me. It’s just, I’ve read many other memoirs of horrible childhoods and racism and destructive behavior and I’m not always entirely sure what I am supposed to take from them or do. I know it was written for a reason, but it still feels weirdly exploitative or voyeuristic to read and enjoy if that makes sense.

It may be that this book just isn’t for me. It has amazing reviews, and others in my book review were so impressed and astounded by it. But for me, I struggled, and I felt bad and like I was intruding by reading it. For how you will feel, your own mileage from memoirs will probably be a guide.