The Crooked Bookies discussion

My selection for March is Heavy by Kiese Laymon.

Please post your discussions here.

Did the discussion for The Book Of Speculation end already? Or can I just not find it on the app??

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The discussion thread is here.

Heavy... Deep… Real... These are just some of the words that came to mind when reading Heavy by Kiese Laymon. I’ve never lived or vacationed to the south of America aside from Florida but that doesn’t really count as the south in my opinion. The south to me, are the states that have Jim Crow written all over them. Where prejudice and racism still run deep. Not say it these traits don’t occur all over the America but in these states specifically like, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Louisiana to me are where the roots run deep.

Kiese’s portrayal of life as a black man in Mississippi is everything I thought it would be and then some. The oppression he faces from the day he is born is insane. I believe his mother told him he needed to be twice as good at everything to even be half as good as his white classmates in his teachers eyes. The beatings also resonated with me. I felt these beatings really traumatized him but at the same time toughened him up to the outside world. If a woman that he loves and loves him back can hurt him like that than imagine what the real world can do to you.

Hi! Just popping by to say that I won't have time to get it this month (or possibly the next), but I will eventually read this. Looking forward to the memoir.

I’m still on a waiting list for this at my library. Not sure if I’m going to get to it either

I just received the audio book from Libby today. I'd been on the wait list for 2 months. It's okay if you can't get to Heavy for another month or two.

Some things I found interesting:

- Throughout the book, Laymon makes it clear that Heavy isn't written for white people. Other than one bit at the end, it seems not to be. I wish I hadn't returned my book early; I want to discuss that passage. It went something like, "We can make this next transition by being generous with each other and truthful with each other. Or, we'll be Americans about this."

- Kiese doesn't demonize his fat body. He doesn't simplify his fat body. He doesn't use his fat body as a symbol for sickness. His thinning body isn't a symbol for healing. If anything, he seems worse off when he's smaller. I love that he examines the relationship between wanting to lose weight and wanting to disappear.

Okay, I'm back and not typing from my phone this time, so I can edit what I'm writing now and not have that be a pain in the ass.

I went into Heavy expecting a man's perspective on being fat in the United States. This is a subject that interests me. I'm fat. Most of the people in my family are fat. Many of my friends are fat. Worldwide, there's a growing movement for acceptance of fat bodies, but it's mostly women who are taking part in this movement. Men are almost voiceless in this area. Why? They choose not to speak up, is one reason. But I think there's also a fair amount of shunning going on--of fat women assuming that any man who joins our groups must be a fetishist or is only there for sport. Or maybe these men remind them of the many, many other men who've called these women "cows," "pigs," etc. over their lifetimes. If you view the comments on my Facebook fat activist groups, you'll notice that any man's comment always has a few fewer 'likes' than its surrounding comments made by women.

So I was interested in seeing all of this from a guy's point of view. I felt sad, reading Kiese's memoir. He is so isolated. There is no sense of community where his fatness is concerned. There's no support system. If Kiese's day is filled with randos thinsplaining to Kiese how his fat body operates ("Calories in, calories out! It's that simple!"), he doesn't have a group to go vent to. He just takes it and tries to change for them.

Even though what I wanted Kiese to address does get addressed, Heavy falls a little short for me. I've recently read a better memoir about being fat (Roxane Gay's Hunger), and I've recently read a better memoir about being African American in today's ultra racist United States (Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates). Heavy still gets a 5 from me because it's 5-star writing and because any book that tells the truth about weight automatically rocks. It's just, there are better memoirs.