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Kiese Laymon's Heavy

  • BookBar 4280 Tennyson Street Denver, CO, 80212 United States (map)

Join us on Saturday, December 4, 2022 at 5:00 PM (MT) as we discuss Kiese Laymon’s Heavy: An American Memoir. We will meet at BookBar, so bring your book and your beautiful mind. We can’t wait to see you for this discussion.

Heavy Description: (256 pages)

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. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to time in New York as a college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. Heavy is a “gorgeous, gutting…generous” (The New York Times) memoir that combines personal stories with piercing intellect to reflect both on the strife of American society and on Laymon’s experiences with abuse. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, he asks us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.