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You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir
A searing, deeply moving memoir about family, love, and loss from the critically acclaimed, bestselling National Book Award winner.
When his mother passed away at the age of 78, Sherman Alexie responded the only way he knew how: he wrote. The result is this stunning memoir. Featuring 78 poems, 78 essays and intimate family photographs, Alexie shares raw, angry, funny, profa ...more
When his mother passed away at the age of 78, Sherman Alexie responded the only way he knew how: he wrote. The result is this stunning memoir. Featuring 78 poems, 78 essays and intimate family photographs, Alexie shares raw, angry, funny, profa ...more
Hardcover, 457 pages
Published
June 13th 2017
by Little, Brown and Company
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(showing 1-30)
Audiobook:
The intensity
The ferociousness
The vibrancy
The power
The effectiveness
The aggressiveness
and PASSION..........in which Sherman Alexie reads his memoir sizzles-and burns with such force - at times 'just listening' to Alexie speak felt comparable to being in the stands with 150,000 screaming fans at Laguna Seca watching NASCAR drivers.
THIS BOOK IS *EVERYTHING* the blurb says it is and 100 times MORE!!!
I CRIED ... oh I cried... I swear it's not my fault: SHERMAN ALEXIE ABUSED ME .... HE D ...more
The intensity
The ferociousness
The vibrancy
The power
The effectiveness
The aggressiveness
and PASSION..........in which Sherman Alexie reads his memoir sizzles-and burns with such force - at times 'just listening' to Alexie speak felt comparable to being in the stands with 150,000 screaming fans at Laguna Seca watching NASCAR drivers.
THIS BOOK IS *EVERYTHING* the blurb says it is and 100 times MORE!!!
I CRIED ... oh I cried... I swear it's not my fault: SHERMAN ALEXIE ABUSED ME .... HE D ...more
I have only read one previous book by this author, his rather well known The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Never knew how autobiographical it really was, but after reading this I can definitely see where he was coming from. Searing in it's honestly, this is a powerful telling of his life, hard to read at times, but his ironic wit keeps it bearable. His conflicted feelings toward his mother, even after her death, so many things he could not understand. Made for repetitious reading
...more
I'm so picky when it comes to memoirs, but this one is truly something special. Sherman Alexie blends poetry and prose with a healthy dose of humor and gut-wrenching honesty. I loved how this book basically took everything great from his other work, put it in a blender, and added a wallop of naked honesty. The result is beautiful, heartbreaking, and breathtaking. (And at times, very, very funny.)
Whether or not you've ever read Sherman Alexie, whether or not you enjoy memoirs, this book is so com ...more
Whether or not you've ever read Sherman Alexie, whether or not you enjoy memoirs, this book is so com ...more
This book is sure to give you an emotional ride, particularly if you listen to the audiobook read by the author. It is read with passion. Prose poetry is what is delivered. He knows better than anyone which word to emphasize, where to pause, where involuntarily laughter erupts and where tears come to his eyes. His voice quavers and his voice sings. He lays his heart and soul bare. What is given is a lyrical reading that exudes feeling - grief and longing and search for resolution. Poetry is a so
...more
Reviewing an uncorrected Advance Reading Copy; the book will be on sale June 13, 2017.
After his mother's death in 2015, Sherman Alexie worked through his complicated memories and emotions in the way he knows best: writing. This book is the result. In poetry and prose, he tells of growing up with a complicated, chaotic family with alcoholic parents, dangerous neighbors and relatives, cruel teachers and social workers. He is the "unreliable narrator of his own life."
On nearly every other page, you ...more
After his mother's death in 2015, Sherman Alexie worked through his complicated memories and emotions in the way he knows best: writing. This book is the result. In poetry and prose, he tells of growing up with a complicated, chaotic family with alcoholic parents, dangerous neighbors and relatives, cruel teachers and social workers. He is the "unreliable narrator of his own life."
On nearly every other page, you ...more
I absolutely adore Sherman Alexie, so that this gets 5 stars from me shouldn't be a surprise. As always, his writing and poetry are beautiful, and this book is just wonderful, start to finish. Such a fantastic and talented storyteller.
A beautiful quilt of stories and poems and poemstories and storypoems. I've read nearly everything Alexie has written, and I'm drawn to any story or memoir about someone's mother, so I jumped on this one when it came to my library. Being from the same state as him, some of the places and even some of the people are familiar to me, which added another level to my experience as well. It reminded me a lot of another book I'm reading/listening to, Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, for the mother/son relat
...more
...thank you,heartbreaking and beautiful. candid and sincere. revelatory and sorrowful. cathartic and expressive. eloquent and coarse. brave and amusing. tender and taut.
mother, for being my mother.
thank you for your imperfect love
it almost worked. it mostly worked.
or partly worked. it was almost enough.
i allowed my wife—who'd seen me naked and touched me thousands of times—to finally touch me in those places where i had hoarded so much of my pain and shame.as anyone who has read the many wo ...more
If you already love Sherman Alexie, you will love him even more after reading YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME. If you don't know you love him yet, you will. It's honest, raw, and so so funny. His stories are interspersed with poems. I didn't think I liked poems! I read these, thinking, 'oh my gosh do I love poems now?' Every anecdote has that classic Alexie flavor, even the simplest and tiniest moments shine brightly with his Coeur d'Alene, Choctaw background. I felt his pain and love for his
...more
The book of the year. Maybe the best memoir I've ever read. Just want to shout it from the rooftop--READ THIS BOOK!
A curious, interesting, and enlightening memoir about mothers and reservations and emotions. Mixing prose & poetry, Alexie explores his messy maternal relationship while simultaneously exploring both of their histories - all non-linear but flowing oh so well regardless.
I highly recommend this memoir for fans of Alexie, and anyone who has ever wondered at their own maternal relationship(s).
I highly recommend this memoir for fans of Alexie, and anyone who has ever wondered at their own maternal relationship(s).
In YOU DON’T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME, Sherman Alexie sets his soul on fire and then invites you to sit next to him to watch it burn. Elegantly executed and heartbreakingly honest.
If you are a fan of Sherman Alexie, this is a book you need to read. It's a memoir of his life. It may surprise you to find out how much of his story in Part-time Indian is true. It may astonish you to discover that his story in Part-time Indian is not an atypical story for a person living on a reservation. It may motivate you to take action.
The level of vulnerability in this is incredible. If you love Alexie, you'll for sure what to read this. It's about grief and loss, both on the small scale and on the large.
This book was incredible, powerful, lyrical, charming, vulnerable, unflinching.
Oh Sherman,
I've been a fan of yours since "discovering" your work in Smoke Signals (discovering makes me sound horribly like Columbus...ugh). I've read and absorbed each of your works and have seen you speak more than a few times. I'm one of those "white people to want to embrace you".
And so when I worked my way through this memoir (and it was work, each turn of the page required a sense of courage on my part), I wasn't shocked and surprised. Rather, I was so very saddened that your young life w ...more
I've been a fan of yours since "discovering" your work in Smoke Signals (discovering makes me sound horribly like Columbus...ugh). I've read and absorbed each of your works and have seen you speak more than a few times. I'm one of those "white people to want to embrace you".
And so when I worked my way through this memoir (and it was work, each turn of the page required a sense of courage on my part), I wasn't shocked and surprised. Rather, I was so very saddened that your young life w ...more
Raw and visceral, this isn't for everyone. As Alexie himself says, it's repetitive because grief is repetitive. But if you've lost someone and the loss is haunting you, you may well find that this memoir helps give words to the horror and grief.
This is the reason I read--beautiful, sad, honest, funny.
Sherman Alexie, author of "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," has written a raw memoir about his mother and their often volatile relationship. He writes unflinchingly about not being able to forgive his mother for the abuse that he suffered, often at her hands, sometimes at the hands of others. He works through his grief by writing about his mother and their relationship, which was built on anger. When an abuser dies and that abuser is a family member, do you still grieve? Do you
...more
Describes things tragic and unendurable with humor and directness. Everyone should read this.
This book is Alexie's earnest attempt to give expression to his mixed feelings about his late mother. Like the underlying feelings, these expressions are messy and tangled. The bits of narrative set forth across the 100+ "chapters" are fragmented, repetitive, and self-identified as unreliable.
I almost gave up halfway through. Then I took a nap and, upon waking, reached for my Kindle and gave it another go. And then it got better - or maybe Alexie's voice just grew on me.
The process of getting ...more
I almost gave up halfway through. Then I took a nap and, upon waking, reached for my Kindle and gave it another go. And then it got better - or maybe Alexie's voice just grew on me.
The process of getting ...more
Sherman Alexie is brutally honest in this memoir, about what it was like for him being Native American in the US. He points the finger of blame for his trials and woes towards everyone, including himself and his mother. This book was hard to read at times, but it was poignant, sad, funny, tragic, and to top it off, it was poetic. I've read this author before, but I had no idea he considers himself a poet and that part of him shined in this memoir. He used great prose to drive certain points home
...more
"There are family mysteries I cannot solve. There are family mysteries I am unwilling to solve."
There is utterly nothing to add to this powerful, wrenching, painful love story of grief.
So, I will share quotes that made me breathless, made me rage, made we weep. Much of this memoir is emotionally accessible to anyone who had a parent(s) who were un-withable or whose families live in generational poverty with addictions and mental illness, but so few of us, so microscopically few, will be able to ...more
There is utterly nothing to add to this powerful, wrenching, painful love story of grief.
So, I will share quotes that made me breathless, made me rage, made we weep. Much of this memoir is emotionally accessible to anyone who had a parent(s) who were un-withable or whose families live in generational poverty with addictions and mental illness, but so few of us, so microscopically few, will be able to ...more
This book absolutely blew me away. I'd give it 10 stars if Goodreads would let me! I laughed and I cried and I read this book in a day. Poetry and essays combined into one of the most heartfelt memoirs (and accounts of the travesties committed against American Indian tribes) I have ever read. If you don't know who Sherman Alexie is, you need to know him - look him up and read this book. If you already know his work, this will cement your appreciation for him. His life story is heartbreaking and
...more
So good that I devoured it in a day, and probably would have finished it in a matter of hours if I hadn't needed to keep stopping to exclaim to whoever was near me, "Oh my god, this is so good."
As someone who has lost both parents, I saw so much of myself in this lament/memoir/exorcism. The grief, the anger, the moments of inappropriate hilarity (at his mother's graveside, upon hearing the pastor mistake the speed of light as 186,000 miles per hour instead of per second, Alexie has a vision of h ...more
As someone who has lost both parents, I saw so much of myself in this lament/memoir/exorcism. The grief, the anger, the moments of inappropriate hilarity (at his mother's graveside, upon hearing the pastor mistake the speed of light as 186,000 miles per hour instead of per second, Alexie has a vision of h ...more
This book was intense, this book was amazing. Sherman Alexie told the story of his life and in doing so ripped off the scabs of his pain and dug a scalpel into the open wound. At times funny, at times painful, but always brutally honest this book is what a memoir should be. It also reinforces to me that Sherman Alexie is the greatest writer in Washington State.
Cried on the couch when he wrote about absorbing the finality of his friend's death. He's such a fantastic author and I'm so thrilled I was able to read this.
This book probably contains too much language and mature themes for most of my Goodreads followers. However, this memoir, written in poetry, essay, and prose is startling, sad, and beautiful by turn. The difficult themes are part of the truth-telling and needed in this context. Alexie writes about his life growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation and then his decision to leave, his complicated relationship with his mother, and his complicated grief at her death. I do not recommend this to ev
...more
A powerful memoir that is a combination of prose and poetry. The stories Alexie shares of his parents, in particular his mother, are often brutal, but what a tale they weave. I'd love to hear him speak! (Own)
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Around the Year i...: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie | 1 | 11 | Jul 07, 2017 11:13AM | |
| Page Turners at H...: Author Alert! | 1 | 10 | Jun 20, 2017 10:45AM |
Sherman J. Alexie, Jr., was born in October 1966. A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA, about 50 miles northwest of Spokane, WA. Alexie has published 18 books to date.
Alexie is an award-winning and prolific author and occasional comedian. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a modern Native American. Sherman's best known works in ...more
More about Sherman Alexie...
Alexie is an award-winning and prolific author and occasional comedian. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a modern Native American. Sherman's best known works in ...more
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“Dear wife, I'm sorry that I am mysteriously incapable of folding clean laundry, but I iron, oh, I iron. Sweetheart, I'll make your white shirt so crisp and sharp that it will split atoms as you walk.”
—
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“What about me?” I asked. “Am I mean?” “You aren’t mean to me with words,” she said. “You’re mean to me with your silences.”
—
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Jun 30, 2017 09:32AM
Jul 07, 2017 10:19PM