A Reckoning Is Different than a Tell-All: An Interview with Kiese Laymon

Heavy: An American Memoir is Kiese Laymon’s third book. The first, Long Division, a novel, and the second, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, an essay collection, were both published in the summer of 2013—one in June and one in August. Laymon’s work is known for its honesty and courage, as well as for the way he reckons with his own past and our collective national one. In Heavy, he takes the stuff of his life and renders it on the page. Laymon discusses violence in many forms, gambling and addiction, the treatment of black students at predominantly white institutions, and more. He also discusses weight and bodies and the way all these things lend themselves to a heaviness that can be both physical and emotional. There’s a fable-like quality to the storytelling: it imparts its lessons in layers.

Laymon and I spoke on the phone as he was making the twelve-hour drive from Oxford, Mississippi, to Tampa, Florida, to meet with booksellers. The sounds of the highway occasionally made themselves heard in the background. In conversation, he is genuine and open, turning questions back around to his interlocutor with sincere curiosity. His work forces us to ask: What if everybody wrote like this to those who love and hurt them about the ways they have been loved and hurt? What would that do, and what would it look like? Until then, we’re just lucky that Laymon shows us a path toward reckoning.

INTERVIEWER

What does heaviness evoke for you?

LAYMON

Heaviness evokes fear and desperation and, most importantly, a soulfulness. For me, it’s not one thing. I think I thought it was one thing before I started the book, but as I worked on it, I began to embrace the soulfulness in heaviness. It’s something most people try to avoid, but it’s also something that I need to make it through the day.

INTERVIEWER

You write this book to your mother, telling her some of what made you and broke you, telling her some of where you’ve