This is the second iteration of Laymon’s collection, released seven years after the first. Now, with Laymon’s new essay collection, “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America,” our friendship has only deepened. As Laymon says of his imaginary friendships with writers like Richard Wright and Toni Cade Bambara, we spent “hours in each other’s homes, wandering around each other’s guts.” Ensconced in that zone of overlap, I’d grin as I reached for “Heavy,” occasionally asking, “What’s up today, Kie?” Such imaginary friendships between readers and writers aren’t uncommon, their basis forming when the emotional energy used to create a text overlaps with the emotional energy used to extract it. And yet, in my mind, he and I are friends. I met Kiese Laymon last spring when he visited Emerson College, where I teach, to read and discuss his magnum opus, “Heavy: An American Memoir.” After the event, I thanked him for coming, expressed my admiration of his work and posed with him for a photo. HOW TO SLOWLY KILL YOURSELF AND OTHERS IN AMERICA By Kiese Laymon
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