About this item
*Named a Best Book of 2018 by the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Buzzfeed (Nonfiction) , The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs) , The Washington Post (Nonfiction) , Southern Living (Southern) , Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times Critics* In this powerful, provocative, and universally lauded memoir - shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal and Kirkus Prize - genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon "provocatively meditates on his trauma growing up as a black man, and in turn crafts an essential polemic against American moral rot" (Entertainment Weekly) .In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi.
About the Author
Kiese Laymon is a black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon attended Millsaps College and Jackson State University before graduating from Oberlin College. He earned an MFA from Indiana University and is the author of the forthcoming novel, Long Division in June 2013 and a collection of essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America in August 2013. Laymon is a contributing editor at gawker. com. He has written essays and stories for numerous publications including Esquire, ESPN. com, NPR, Gawker, Truthout. com, Longman's Hip Hop Reader, Mythium and Politics and Culture. Laymon is currently an Associate Professor of English, Creative Writing and co-director of Africana Studies at Vassar College.
