Heavy: an American memoir, by Kiese Layman

 

This is a powerful memoir by Rice University Professor and 2022 MacArthur Fellowship recipient Kiese Laymon. Written as a letter to his mother, Kiese strives to tell the truth about his childhood and young adulthood, including the many formative events and traumas that he never before revealed or admitted. He grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, the son of a single mother who was first working on her Ph.D., and later a professor at Jackson State University. Kiese was repeatedly sexually abused by a babysitter and observed sexual coercion and violence at the home of friends where he was supposed to stay while his mother was studying or working. He was highly intelligent, a trait that was encouraged and strengthened by growing up in a house full of books and having a mother and grandmother who regularly gave him writing assignments about his reading. But his mother violently beat him for even small transgressions, a practice that began after she started dating a man who beat her. Kiese also faced bigotry and racism in his schools, colleges, and later workplaces. While Kiese was able to avoid involvement with drugs or alcohol, he developed addictions to both food and gambling, the latter of which his mother also experienced. As an adult, he comes to realize the depth of his mother's addiction and realizes the depth of her lying to him about her need for money or inability to pay the bills or maintain her home. Heavy is Kiese's attempt to finally tell the truth about all of his childhood traumas and get his mother to acknowledge how she hurt him. Her admonitions throughout his youth that he has to be perfect to avoid becoming a victim of white people didn't protect him from her own abuses. This is a tough and incredibly sad memoir. Kiese doesn't tell us whether or how he was able to escape his demons and overcome his addictions, so it left me with as many questions as answers.