Heavy: An American Memoir - Tapa blanda

Críticas

So beautifully written, so insightful, so thoughtful, so honest, so vulnerable, so intimate ... A gift (Jesmyn Ward, TLS Books of the Year)

Oh my god. Heavy is astonishing. Difficult. Intense. Layered. Wow. Just wow (Roxane Gay, author of 'Hunger')

Brilliant and ground-shaking (Elizabeth Gilbert)

Unflinchingly honest (Reni Eddo-Lodge)

Laymon's writing, as rich and elegant as mahogany, offers us comfort even as we grapple with his book's unflinching honesty ... If this book succeeds as a thoughtful and hard-wrought examination of how a black man came into his own in a country determined to prevent that from happening, it's because of the painstaking manner in which Laymon walks the reader through the various perils and costs of striving ... Excellent (New York Times)

Quite simply, Heavy is one of the most important and intense books of the year because of the unyielding, profoundly original and utterly heartbreaking way it addresses and undermines expectations for what exactly it's like to possess and make use of a male black body in America (Los Angeles Times)

It's a book aching with heart yet proffering no illusions. It's raw and vulnerable and suffused with fiercest seeing. It's masculinity it all its self-consuming threat and secret beauty. Kiese Laymon writes of his mother "You modeled a rugged love.. You demanded that we develop a radical moral intelligence." In Heavy, this singular triumph of writing, he's done the same (David Chariandy, author of 'Brother')

Tremendous. A searing excavation of trauma and memory that left me stunned. Heavy is a gift and Laymon one of the most important voices around. I cannot stop thinking about it (Irenosen Okojie)

Heavy is an act of truth telling unlike any other I can think of in American literature, partly due to Laymon's uniquely gifted mind-his ability to pursue the ways we lie to each other while also loving each other, or, not, and the humility he brings to bear while doing so, this consistently brings us back to life, to what matters in this world. Heavy is a gift to us, if we can pick it up-a moral exercise and an intimate history that is at the same time a story about America (Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel)

Gorgeous ... This reckoning with trauma, terror, fear, sexual violence, abuse, addiction, family, secrets, lies, truth, and the weight of the nation and his body would be affecting in less capable hands, but with Kiese at the helm it is nothing short of a modern classic. These sentences that he so painstakingly crafted are some the most arresting ever printed in the English language (Mychal Denzel Smith, New York Times bestselling author of 'Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching')

Reseña del editor

'So beautifully written, so insightful, so thoughtful, so honest, so vulnerable, so intimate ... A gift' JESMYN WARD
'Wow. Just wow' ROXANE GAY
'Unflinchingly honest' RENI EDDO-LODGE
'An act of truth-telling unlike any other I can think of' ALEXANDER CHEE
A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR

The story of the black male experience in America you've never read before

Kiese Laymon grew up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his career as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, abuse, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing and ultimately gambling.

In Heavy, by attempting to name secrets and lies that he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few know how to love responsibly, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.

A defiant yet vulnerable memoir that Laymon started writing when he was eleven, Heavy is an insightful exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship and family.