I didn’t know how to use the right adjectives and page breaks. I didn’t know how to enter into some of those memories. That’s why I couldn’t create the book for two decades. I had to have a particular kind of skillset to write Heavy. Those books were important and I honed my skills with them. I found the courage by writing two other books-two other books that were really different from this book. How did you find the courage and emotional capacity necessary to reflect on your past? But there’s a lot of nasty stuff too and I wanted to write about a lot of that.Ĭertainly the task of writing Heavy must have been tough at times. Like, “I lost all this weight…my family lost weight and we came to the conclusion that to be healthy in this country, all we need to do is eat right and talk to each other a little bit more…” Maybe. With the book, I think people wanted to read one of those stories that ends with everything being hunky-dory.

It’s easier to get people to like you if you lie. It’s easier to walk through life believing A when B is true, or when both A and B may be true. Morrison's great novel inspired me to embrace multiple interpretations of what it means to die.Ī deeply underrated book, All About Love gave me permission to ask scary questions of myself before asking scary questions of other folks.In the beginning of Heavy, you write, “I wanted to write a lie.” Why do you think lies have so much power in influencing decisions and thoughts? The good thing about not having an editor for the original version of my first book was that I wrote the essays directly to the people the essays are about.

This collection of interviews informed HSKY's way of addressing itself to a village. The book blows my mind.Ĭonversations With Toni Morrison edited by Danille K.

And the great ones are some of the greatest essays ever written. Some of the essays in Baldwin's book aren't great they're more like useful exposition to get us to the next monument. It is the standard I will always unsuccessfully try to meet with my own essay books. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1955). Her riffs on the profane, the sacred, and the 'reunion' of the two are the bricks of HSKY, especially HSKY's pieces about music and power. Perry's survey of hip-hop gave me critical language to talk about Black art and the profits taken by the culture cradling, and often crucifying, Black art. How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America is indebted to at least six books.

Kiese laymon books