Heavy (2018) by Kayise Laymon

 New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century #60

Heavy (2018)

by Kiese Layman

   One thing I love about reading is that it allows you to engage in serious subjects in a thoughtful fashion without having to TALK to anyone else about it.   If someone has an opinion or experience that is important to them they should write it down, preferably as a book, find someone who thinks its worth publishing and then publish it.  The further the experience is from my own, the more value I derive from the reading or listening experience.  I remember when Heavy- a memoir about the life of the author growing up as the precociously intellectual, overweight African American son of an equally intelligent single African-American academic mother in Mississippi and I ignored it because back in 2018 I wasn't particularly interested in what it was like to grow up obese and African-American in Mississippi. 

  In 2024 I found the Audiobook, read by the author, enthralling and the idea that Heavy is simply about being overweight is the descriptive equivalent of saying that Ulysses is about a guy taking a walk in Dublin.  One of the things I've already learned from the non-fiction section of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century is the impact that racism and poverty and overall oppression has on the physical bodies of African-American.   This author, who was the child of an extremely well-educated single Mother was not exempted from trauma but in his position as a teacher and author he is able to articulate his experience in a revelatory way.

   One of the points that I've seen again and again both in fiction and non-fiction about the African-American experience is that living in a society that continues to embrace the idea of white supremacy contributes to a deep stoicism in African Americans of all types- that these ideas are internalized and they cause disruptions in the process of developing a coherent self-identity which often leads high-achieving African-Americans into patterns of self-destructive behavior.  

   I thought Heavy was excellent and I'm glad it made this list so I finally compelled to read it.