Heavy
Kiese Laymon addresses his memoir to his mother as an extended reckoning with growing up Black, brilliant, and hungry in Mississippi. He traces the weight he carried in his body, in his family's secrets, and in the gambling and silences that shaped them, refusing to soften any of it into easy redemption. The result is a searing account of love, addiction, and the physical cost of American inheritance, written in prose that pairs scholarly precision with the cadence of confession.
Themes & atmosphere
Books in conversation with Heavy
A few of the closest reads from our full list.
Where Heavy keeps showing up
One of our editors' lists features this novel.
What you might want to know about Heavy
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Written as a long letter to his mother, Laymon's memoir takes apart his Mississippi childhood, his abuse, his eating, his teaching career, and the gambling and silence that ran through his family.
Yes. Heavy: An American Memoir is Kiese Laymon's 2018 memoir about his upbringing in Mississippi, his complicated relationship with his mother, his body, and Black masculinity in America. It is structured as a long letter to his mother.
Yes. Heavy won the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the LA Times Book Prize. It was named one of the most important memoirs of the decade by multiple publications.
Heavy was written by Kiese Laymon, published in 2018 by Simon and Schuster.
Heavy is 256 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Heavy takes most readers 4 to 6 hours to finish.
Heavy is a standalone novel by Kiese Laymon, not part of a series.
Heavy is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.