Kiese Laymon

As Kiese Laymon's story approaches its end, there's a moment - for maybe half a page - that lulls the reader into a belief in a neat resolution, a final victory, or a happily ever after.

It comes right before the point where the body breaks down and something that I would have seen as success from the outsider, the weight loss, the health, reveals itself as an addiction that slides the speaker past what is healthy into the act of trying to disappear.

The parallels with what failing to reckon show more with histories of abuse, personal, societal, and the inflicting of terror make this a difficult book to finish. The writing is smooth and direct but the reality that has to be heard on every page and the lies we tell ourselves make reading a few pages at a time valuable. And no matter what I thought I knew of racism and injustice, there's the view of terror practiced on the body and mind that history and news can't show.

I realize early on this story wasn't written for me but it's a realization that made shutting up and listening even more important. The personal gives glimpses that bust through what I thought was wisdom growing up. The connection to the myth of American history busts through the idea that any issue from the past is ever really over. The author's mother mentions with the election of President Obama, the backlash to come, which in itself is true - but also chilling in the realization how often every move forward will be met with this backlash.

Heavy should fill readers with admiration for the author's gift and a rebuke to our own need to cling to illusions about the past and present. And the realization that that success is something that has to be fought for again and again. show less

I found myself reliving many conversations, often in tents on the other side of the world, where my eyes - away from the myth of American exceptionalism and innocence, were opened. Guilty of the privileged sin of thinking I knew more than I did. The America not seen at tables of privilege was always a poorly kept secret. But still.

Still, I got to the essay titled 'Reasonable Doubt and the Lost Presidential Election of 2012' - and the sentence, "I also assumed most of those folks were show more wondering how retribution for this splendid Black American Achievement would be played out on their bodies" and realized the ugliness of American mythology was uglier than realized - centuries of seeing every moment of progress repaid with a violent backlash. And the need to stop overtalking what's being said and to just shut up and listen.

Kiese Laymon lays down these truths in a way that rips the veneer off the myth. It's storytelling at its finest that resists the urge to compartmentalize discussions of justice from discussions of family from discussions of joy from discussions of grief - showing how pervasive hate is. Even after a person has come to terms with its destructiveness, that's only the beginning of the learning process.

Kiese Laymon needs to be read at every level. show less

A raw and intimate look at systemic racism in America, cyclical abuse, addiction, self-loathing, and the harsh realities of raising a child while trying to raise yourself out of poverty. Laymon's exploration of the lies people tell themselves (and others) to avoid confronting the pain required to improve was the most compelling for me.

This memoir is addressed to Laymon's mother, a brilliant and passionate but abusive woman who felt the need to toughen up her son through physical abuse to prepare him for the difficulties of being a black man in America. The relationship between mother and son is a fraught give-and-take and colors Laymon's every experience from childhood through to adulthood and his interactions with the world. His writing is powerful, and his story even more so. There is no neat ending here, but in show more wrestling with his history, Laymon has found a subject worthy of his talent. show less