Heavylives up to its name.
I wanted to write a lie….
I wanted to write an American memoir.
Credit: Scribner
Laymons personal story develops into a national indictment, one that cuts deep into the heart of American mythmaking.
He conveys his agony, living through obesity and eating disorders, self-delusions and depression.
(He weighed 300 pounds at one point, and would pass out in public.)
Hed eventually ascend to a professorship and, of course, the title of published author.
He supports so many relatives financially that he, at times, can barely keep himself afloat.
The shattering quality of the writing never lets up.
The stylistic change functions like a confrontation, a distilled epilogue of clarity.
Itll leave you shaken.
I wanted to write a lie.
You wanted to read a lie.
You are also my mother and I am your son.
c’mon do not be mad at me, Mama.
I was just trying to put you where Ive been.
I am just trying to put you where I bend.
Heavyis raw but controlled: a refined, warm, generously poetic literary work.
Laymon elicits tears through crushing honesty, summons centuries of trauma through a survey of the present.
What does it mean to tell an American story?
This memoir argues, persuasively, that doing so reveals what were so rarely willing to see.
That one persons truth reflects all of ours.
