Heavy cover art

Heavy

An American Memoir

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Heavy

By: Kiese Laymon
Narrated by: Kiese Laymon
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $21.99

Buy Now for $21.99

About this listen

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 11, Heavy is an insightful exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship and family.

©2018 Kiese Laymon (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Racism & Discrimination Social Sciences Memoir Discrimination
All stars
Most relevant
This chronicled account of how mental health, socioeconomic impact, and abuse can shape and influence the way the Black American child internalizes and can fall into the cyclical trap of illness/addiction, poverty and systematic oppression through the caveat of repeated devaluation from their predisposition to fail, demonstrates and takes the reader through what could be reduced to a skin tightening ‘epilogical’ reference of the protagonists struggles. Very well written and titled.

Brilliant.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I came across this book on the recommendation of Liz Gilbert, and it blew me away. Such an incredible piece of autobiographical writing. It’s raw, brutally honest, lyrical lyrical, political — and I loved Kiese’s narration as well. What a service to human beings everywhere.

Exquisitely written and read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Poetic, lyrical and emotionally raw - this is a beautifully written life story, and even more beautifully narrated by the man whose story it is.

Powerful and beautiful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
the author's honesty paints such a powerful picture of how race and fatness intersect in the United States of America.

As powerful as it is Vulnerable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.