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You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Sherman Alexie

4.16 · Rating details · 15,535 ratings · 2,840 reviews

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

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Hardcover, 457 pages

Published June 13th 2017 by Little, Brown and Company

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Jun 17, 2017 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

Shelves: biography-autobiography-memoir, favorite-audiobooks, native-americans, poetry, great-discussion-pick, politics, humor, memoir-favorite, non-fiction, family-relationships

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

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Jun 17, 2017 Brina rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoirs, native-american

As a leading voice in Native American literature, works by Sherman Alexie are always a joy to read. Taking biographical events and turning them into fiction, Alexie applies a mix of humor to serious topics, especially when discussing the status of Native American life both on and off of reservations. When I found out that Alexie had penned a memoir titled You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir which paid homage to his mother, I had my curiosity piqued. A raw mix of introspection, poetry, an As a leading voice in Native American literature, works by Sherman Alexie are always a joy to read. Taking biographical events and turning them into fiction, Alexie applies a mix of humor to serious topics, especially when discussing the status of Native American life both on and off of reservations. When I found out that Alexie had penned a memoir titled You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir which paid homage to his mother, I had my curiosity piqued. A raw mix of introspection, poetry, and prose, Alexie's work is an eye opening memoir that is both a joy and painful to read.

Sherman Alexie's mother Lillian passed away in 2015 after suffering from Parkinson's disease. The last member of her tribe to fully speak Spokane, Lillian was revered by her entire reservation, her funeral attended by many. She often times supported her family by quilting as her husband was an alcoholic and often went off on binges and left the family for days at a time. The patchwork quilts brought in enough income to pay bills and put food on the table for her children, although it was hardly enough. This lead to a strained relationship with Sherman who wanted even as a child desired more than life on the reservation. By the time of Lillian's diagnosis, Sherman had lived off of the reservation for nearly thirty six years and often supported his mother and sisters financially from afar. As a storyteller, he turned to poetry and other writing as his means of grieving for his mother. Resulting, is this 450 page memoir.

Although the memoir is full of Alexie's humor, it is at times tough to read. As a child he suffered from encephalitis which left him prone to seizures, leaving his face malformed and the brunt of teasing and taunting by the rest of the reservation children. Wearing government issued glasses and attending a reservation school where the teachers verbally and physically abused Indian children, Sherman had little opportunity to excel. Bullied his whole life for his looks, by seventh grade he chose to leave the reservation and attend Reardan, a white public school. Once in Reardan, Alexie never looked back, and his lived his entire adult life in Seattle as what he calls an urban Indian. His decision is one reason for his strained relationship with Lillian, who is as Sherman says married to her reservation. Lillian's life had been no picnic either: a child of rape, a teenaged victim of rape who later lost that daughter to a fire, a wife of an alcoholic. Yet, Lillian somehow survived and was viewed as a respected member of her tribe by many, even if the traumatic events early in her life had resulted with a strained at best relationship with her son.

Choosing to be with his wife and children as his mother lay dying, Sherman turned to what he knew best as a means for grief support: poetry and story telling. The poems in this memoir can be repetitive at times yet are peppered with Alexie's brand of humor. He pens odes to his mother and includes issues crucial to the future of Native Americans, including their relationship with salmon and alcoholism, which has claimed many of his tribe too soon. Yet, the central focus is Lillian, her tough life, her perseverance, and Sherman's means of grieving for her despite his own medical issues. The sections discussing rape are especially powerful and tough to digest so he diffuses this with comparing Lillian to salmon, a fish revered in Spokane culture. Despite the difficult at times relationship that Sherman and Lillian enjoyed, he appreciated all that she did for him and his siblings and honored her in this memoir. I especially enjoyed his couplet poetry about Lillian's love of quilting, which was both a labor of love and a means of supporting her family. The lines were heartfelt and must have been extremely difficult to write.

People turn to different means of grieving. Writer Sherman Alexie turned to writing poetry and prose. Previously I had only read his The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian which is a graphic autobiographical novel detailing his children and decision to attend Reardan High School. The novel was full of self-deprecating humor which had me chuckling at difficult issues. Alexie chooses to diffuse his grief with humor as well. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir is along these same lines of dark humor and was as much of a labor of love as Lillian's quilts. Alexie is indeed a leading Native American voice and it is tough to rate this memoir anything less than 4.5 stars. ...more

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Nov 26, 2017 Esil rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook

I was really hesitant to read or listen to You Don't Have to Say You Love Me. For some reason, I thought it would be relentlessly heartbreaking, and it's rare I'm in the mood for memoirs that are focused on sad abusive childhoods. There's plenty of heartbreak in this memoir, but there's a whole lot more to this one that had me loving it from beginning to end. I listened to the audio as read by Alexie and here is what I loved about it in no particular order:
-The language, often playful and poetic ...more

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Jun 02, 2017 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it

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

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Sep 11, 2017 Julie Ehlers rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: books-about-creativity, free-library, memoir-and-autobiography

I read You Don't Have to Say You Love Me back in June, and since then I've felt weirdly possessive of it. Whenever I saw someone else on Goodreads was reading it, I'd think indignantly, "HEY! Someone else is reading MY book!" And when I saw that someone else had reviewed it, I'd think, "HEY! What's that person doing, reviewing MY book?!?" It happened again just this morning! I was just about to write that this level of possessiveness is irrational, but honestly, in the case of this book I don't ...more

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Mar 27, 2018 J.L. Sutton rated it it was amazing

Sherman Alexie's You Don't Have to Say You Love Me provides the reader the experience of spending time with a master storyteller dealing with grief the only way he knows how. Anticipating and then mourning the death of his mother, Alexie tells stories from his childhood to his life as an author infused with raw emotion and humor. This raw emotion gives way to poetry to more quiet remembrances to an acknowledgment of how trauma shaped his life as well as his family's life. Despite the intensity, ...more

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Jun 09, 2017 Rachel León rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2017, net-galley, memoir, read-in-2017, first-reads

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

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Sep 21, 2017 Erin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: september-2017

I can not imagine what it must feel like to grow up not feeling loved by your mother and even hating her. It just must be the worst feeling in the world.

In You Don't Have to Say You Love Me award winning author Sherman Alexie attempts to come to terms with his relationship with an abusive and mentally ill mother.

Sherman Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian (he calls his self an Indian so thats what imma call him) on a Spokane Indian Reservation in complete poverty. He lived in HUD housing ...more

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Oct 19, 2017 Dave Schaafsma rated it really liked it

Shelves: grief, collage-pastiche-multigenre, auto-bio-memoir

“You don't have to say you love me just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever I will understand
Believe me, believe me”--Dusty Springfield

“In the indigenous world, we assign sacred value to circles. But sometimes a circle just means you keep returning to the same shit again and again. This book is a series of circles, sacred and profane.”—Alexie

"My grief has cast me in a lethargic cabaret.
So pay the cover charge and take your seat.
This mourning has become a relentless production
And I've ...more

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Jun 09, 2017 Chrissie rated it really liked it

Shelves: bio, native-am, audible, 2017-read, medical, poetry, relationships, usa, philo-psychol

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 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 song; it is better heard than read. Some of the lines are in fact sung. I have given the narration a whopping five stars. You should not read this; you should listen to it.

Sherman Alexie is a novelist, short story writer, filmmaker and now with this book a memoirist, but first and foremost a poet. I state this because of the intrinsic poetic tone of his writing. His career began with publication in 1992 of the poetry collection: The Business of Fancydancing (Hanging Loose Press). In the same year he was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship.

It is important to understand that this memoir reads as prose poetry rather than separate pieces of poetry. There is a thread to be followed, a message to be relayed and the writing just happens to be poetic. I usually do not read poetry, but this is different. This is a memoir written with lyrical pose.

Sherman Alexie is speaking of his relationship with his mother, of his own childhood experiences and most importantly of how it is to be Native American still today. He was born in 1966. Today he is fifty, married and living in Seattle, Washington.

The author's writing draws on his own experiences as a Native American. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Eastern Washington State. He writes of poverty, racism, violence, alcoholism and rape, prevalent phenomena in the lives of Native Americans living on or off of reservations. Despair is lightened with humor. Swear words and crudity are a central part of the environment he comes from. Initially I was put off, but as I better came to understand that other life, that is not one I know, I felt compassion rather than disgust. I have learned from this book. It spoke both to my heart and to my head. It has given me insight into a world foreign to my own and for this reason I am very glad to have read it.

This is a heart wrenching read. The author's relationship with his mother had been deeply conflicted. Then his mother died in 2015. Writing this book can be seen as a means of tackling his conflicting emotions. Love and hate. He certainly did have reasons to both love and hate her. He tells all, well almost all. One cannot judge until one understands what he has lived through and what his mother lived through. Alexie was born with hydrocephalus. More than once he has undergone brain surgery. Serious medical problems, poverty, ostracism, bullying, alcoholism and racism are the ingredients of his life. Rape, alcoholism, violence and extreme poverty are determining factors in his mother’s life. Mother and son are merely human. How do you resolve such a nest of worms? How do you straighten out your feelings? I appreciated immensely that the author does not simply blame others; he shoulders his own misdeeds, faults and errors. And he has had the courage to tell us.

The writing is repetitious in two senses. One good and one bad. Recently I read a great essay by E.B. White. It is found in Essays of E.B. White. He speaks of the art of writing and lauds William Strunk Jr.’s The Elements of Style. It is said there, among many other things, that one should keep the writing simple. Remove all words that can be removed. If you want to make appoint, repeat the words, not once or twice but several times. This is how Sherman Alexie writes. Has he read this manual? It seems so. This advice is extremely effective. That is the good repetition. However the author often returns to the same theme or event multiple times and honestly I found this just crazy. I kept thinking, “I’ve already heard that; you’ve already told me that before!” Better editing is warranted. By the end of the book I was getting annoyed by this; a third or at least a fourth of the book could have been edited out.

So why should you read this book? To get an insight into the lifestyle of Native Americans at the end of the last century and still today. It is an eye-opener and it is movingly told. In addition you will reanalyze your own relationships with your parents and siblings. ...more

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Jul 19, 2017 Canadian Reader rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, indigenous, writers, autobiography-and-memoir, mothers-sons

”There is no preparation for the loneliness of a world from which the two people who put you in it have gone. The death of parents removes the last cushion against contemplating your own mortality. The cycle of life and death becomes internal, bone-deep knowledge, a source now of despair, now of inspiration. The earth acquires a new quality of silence.” Roger Cohen in The New York Times

As I was completing Sherman Alexie’s memoir which loosely focuses on his troubled relationship with his Spokane ...more

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Jul 22, 2017 Donalyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: adult-nonfiction

Stunning. NBA contender. Don't miss this one. ...more

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Jul 29, 2017 Jillybb rated it did not like it

Whiny, petulant, repetitive, sexist, and beyond boring. This book is awful.

I've written before that I am not a fan of authors reading their own work. This is painfully true about this book as Alexie whines and snivels and drones on and on about his mother, that hard-working woman who worked her fingers to the bone making quilts so that his arse could be fed. But dear old drunken dad who abandons the family for weeks at a time is a saint!

Alexie acknowledges his mental health issues, which is wh ...more

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Sep 23, 2017 Trish rated it liked it

Shelves: totally-unexpected, memoir, race, skimmed, parenting, family, nonfiction, america

I'd never read Sherman Alexie's first great breakout book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I'm not sure why. I was interested; perhaps I was saving it. Instead I chose to read at this time his new memoir which could also be read as a eulogy for his mother.

His upbringing sounds like it was a rough time all round. His parents were alcoholics. Sherman didn't come out unscathed, but he has been reaching out--he is fearless in revealing himself and his family. Perhaps he has found t I'd never read Sherman Alexie's first great breakout book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I'm not sure why. I was interested; perhaps I was saving it. Instead I chose to read at this time his new memoir which could also be read as a eulogy for his mother.

His upbringing sounds like it was a rough time all round. His parents were alcoholics. Sherman didn't come out unscathed, but he has been reaching out--he is fearless in revealing himself and his family. Perhaps he has found this makes him more likable, relatable.

The end papers of this memoir are printed with a quilt pattern. Alexie tells us his mother quilted all the time, even through the night. He himself has at least ten quilts and he uses all of them. But when his mother died, he wanted to collect all the quilts she'd made and left behind and burn them all. I didn't get the impression he did so. For whatever reason.

Lillian, that was her name. Lillian was one of the last speakers of his ancestor's native language. In a chapter entitled "Eulogy," Alexie repeats the phrase My mother was a dictionary over and over, every couple lines, but she never taught me the tribal language. The poem ends,

She always said to me, 'English will be your best weapon.'
She was right, she was right, she was right.

Perhaps my favorite poem is one of his shortest, called "Communion" in which sentiment pairs with form:

we worship
the salmon

because we
eat salmon

The chapter entitled "Missionary Position" will stay with me a very long time. While in high school, Alexie tells us one of his friends said something deeply racist in his company, having momentarily forgotten he was Indian. He ended up dating her for a few years, and once gave her a pawnshop ring that was worth $20. When they broke up, she gave the ring back. He sold it back to the pawnshop for $10.

In the beginning of the book, in a chapter called "Scatalogical," Alexie explains there is something called a grief poop. After everyone had left the funeral home, two days after the death of his mother, Alexie stayed behind to use the restroom. A sign hung on the wall behind the toilet: Please be gentle with our toilet. The pipes are old. Be judicious in your use of toilet paper. He tells us "I took the largest shit of my life. I expelled everything." He ended up breaking up the poop into pieces and had to hold the pieces in his hand so he could flush them in four tries. "Thing was as big as a walrus." I'd never known about grief poops, but it makes sense.

Alexie's work has become indispensable for the well-read American. One cannot claim any credibility as a reader without having dipped a foot into his world and walked awhile in his boots. Reading Alexie is a kind of responsibility. ...more

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Feb 25, 2018 Hannah added it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, memoir, non-fiction

I will leave this book unrated. While I was reading this, accusations against Sherman Alexie have started to emerge and I cannot at this point seperate the art from the artist. I will say this: on a technical level, this is well-written and emotionally moving, on a personal level, I don't know how to talk about this book. ...more

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Feb 22, 2018 Ginger rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club, 2018, library-book

Listen. I don't know how or when
My grieving will end, but I'm always
Relearning how to be human again.

This memoir was great!! After switching from audio to written print, I enjoyed it much more. I wasn’t a fan of the audio book because Sherman Alexie got a bit too dramatic for me at times. I just wasn’t a fan. But when I was reading his words, it worked!

I enjoyed his brutal honesty with his mother’s death, his family and growing up on the reservation. I can’t imagine the pain and shame of g ...more

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Mar 16, 2018 Celia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018-ec, bios-memoirs, 2018-read, elyse

Part narrative, part prose poetry, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me is written by Sherman Alexie, all Native American Indian!!

This book is primarily about his relationship with his mother. That relation is part magic, part tragic. Sherman relates this to his sons AND his readers in a poem found on pages 414/415.

I was up and down emotionally with this book because of this relationship with Mom. I have never been a mother; would I be any better?

Sherman also details some experiences he had with th ...more

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Sep 07, 2017 Diana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

This is one of the best books I've ever read. In my life.

Several books over the years have made me laugh out loud, but I laughed so hard and so loudly at one point early on in this book that it made the dog yowl.

Several books over the years have made me cry, but not in quite the same way that I cried while reading this book. This book was so deeply personal. It made me feel more human, less alone: Sherman Alexie feels like the best friend I never had.

I finally get it. I get why people love Sherm ...more

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Aug 07, 2018 Meike rated it really liked it

Shelves: usa, 2018-read

In this memoir, Native American author Sherman Alexie tells the story of his mother, her hard life on the Spokane Indian rez in Washington, her death, and how he, after his mother's passing, discovered tragic facts about her youth that she could never reveal to him. In the context of this story, Alexie also talks about his own life as well as about other members of his family and his tribe, thus conveying to his readers what it felt like for him to grow up as a poor reservation Indian.

I recently In this memoir, Native American author Sherman Alexie tells the story of his mother, her hard life on the Spokane Indian rez in Washington, her death, and how he, after his mother's passing, discovered tragic facts about her youth that she could never reveal to him. In the context of this story, Alexie also talks about his own life as well as about other members of his family and his tribe, thus conveying to his readers what it felt like for him to grow up as a poor reservation Indian.

I recently devoured Tommy Orange's brilliant There There, in which he talks about Native Americans who grow up and/or live in the city (in this case Oakland, the author's home town). The book made me want to revisit the work of Alexie who was arguably the first Native American star author, and whose National Book Award-winning novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was banned (!) in some schools and declared as un-christian (!!) because of how it depicted the hardship of Native Americans. Many articles about Orange see him in the tradition of Alexie (obviously), but, together with Terese Marie Mailhot, as the head of a new Native American literary movement.

In You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, Alexie combines 78 poems and 78 essays, thus honoring his mother who died at 78. His signature style holds all texts together: Highly poetic images and metaphors mixed with passionate analysis, humor, contemplation and social criticism. If you don't feel with the people in these stories, you're officially dead inside.

I'm glad that Native American literature gets more attention again, and while it was a major blunder that the Booker didn't longlist Orange, I am now counting on the National Book Award to celebrate his fantastic debut novel. Donald Trump is currently trying to challenge the status of Native American tribal governments, to take away health care and sacred land and to cut down job training programs targeting Native Americans while calling Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" and overall being a racist disgrace to the US.

Turn up the volume for the brilliant, poetic, intelligent new voices who stand against this insanity.

NOTE: Sherman Alexie has recently been accused of sexual misconduct, and he has issued a stement in which he admitted that "there are women telling the truth about my behavior", but also rejected what he calls "outright falsehoods" (https://assets.documentcloud.org/docu...). Here's an article by NPR in which the women speak: https://www.npr.org/2018/03/05/589909.... ...more

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Aug 06, 2017 Caitlin rated it it was ok

Shelves: poetry, nonfiction, fiction

I did not like this memoir. It had very few of the qualities that make a memoir insightful and worthwhile. The first word that comes to mind to describe this memoir is "navel-gazing": self-indulgent or excessive contemplation of oneself or a single issue, at the expense of a wider view.

There are a lot of things I want to see in a well-written memoir. One of them is honesty and accuracy. I want the writing in a memoir to be vivid, and true. Artful honesty is one of the very best parts of a memoi I did not like this memoir. It had very few of the qualities that make a memoir insightful and worthwhile. The first word that comes to mind to describe this memoir is "navel-gazing": self-indulgent or excessive contemplation of oneself or a single issue, at the expense of a wider view.

There are a lot of things I want to see in a well-written memoir. One of them is honesty and accuracy. I want the writing in a memoir to be vivid, and true. Artful honesty is one of the very best parts of a memoir--it's a key ingredient. While Alexie admits to creating his own "highly flawed version of the truth", he doesn't seem to see this as a downside or try to correct it.

I also want the memoir to be about more than just the author. I believe more often than not, you need to be interested in more than just your own point of view, your own pain, in order to write a book that speaks meaningfully to others and makes a thoughtful point. Alexie barely accomplishes this at any point in his memoir, and doesn't seem to have the emotional capacity to write fairly about anyone he dislikes. An example of an author who does this type of writing very well is Tobias Wolff. He is an amazing listener, seems curious about his own inner-workings and the people around him. This translates really well into a memoir, because it expands the memoir beyond just "me me me".

Of course, a large part of a memoir is going to focus on the author. When this happens, I want the author to opt for honesty in place of sensation. I want them to focus on self-searching, not self-promotion. I am not interested in stories and fantasies that exist for the sole purpose of self-glorification. An example where Alexie fails entirely to turn his critical-eye inward (and there are many of these examples) is chapter 27, "Clotheshorse", where a man tells him his shirt is wrinkled and Alexie goes on what can only be described as a petty and immature rant where he decimated the mans character and bragged about popular and great he, Sherman, is. This was the entire chapter, and had nothing to do with anything else that happened in the book. These kinds of outbursts were common.

Which brings me to my next point. The author of a memoir should not be whiny. I don't want to just relive the misery that the author went through, and I find it very off-putting when the purpose of detailing a personal trial seems to be, in large part, to generate sympathy.

I also don't think writing a memoir should = therapy. You are writing for an audience. Unless you're a genius, don't just spew forth a stream of consciousness and expect to create something worthwhile. This instead creates a story that doesn't make sense to me and doesn't convey any message. Again, I think that a good memoir will focus on the lessons you learned through the experiences you're detailing. I believe that it takes a lazy writer to think that expressing themselves, jotting their feelings down, is enough. It's not. It's sloppy and leads to a lot of cliches. I believe the "Fuck you cancer" poem is an example of this. I believe that the repetitiveness that is painfully obvious and in-artfully used in the memoir is an example of this. There are many, many examples of this.

In general, Alexie's immaturity and lack of perspective and perceptive understanding of the world around him made for, in my opinion, a terrible read. There's hopefully no need to say that this is all very subjective though. I know plenty of people enjoyed this book, and maybe aren't looking for what I'm looking for when reading a book like this. ...more

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May 21, 2017 jeremy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: memoir-bio

...thank you,

mother, for being my mother.
thank you for your imperfect love
it almost worked. it mostly worked.
or partly worked. it was almost enough.

heartbreaking and beautiful. candid and sincere. revelatory and sorrowful. cathartic and expressive. eloquent and coarse. brave and amusing. tender and taut.

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 man

...thank you,

mother, for being my mother.
thank you for your imperfect love
it almost worked. it mostly worked.
or partly worked. it was almost enough.

heartbreaking and beautiful. candid and sincere. revelatory and sorrowful. cathartic and expressive. eloquent and coarse. brave and amusing. tender and taut.

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 works of sherman alexie knows well, the spokane/coeur d'alene indian novelist, short story writer, poet, filmmaker, and performer is gifted with the lingual arts. his new memoir, you don't have to say you love me, contends with the past; an often fraught relationship with his mother, his drunken father, his siblings, life on the reservation, tribal relations, bullying, insecurity, poverty, racism, guilt, shame, hurt, vulnerability, courage, abuse, neglect, tragedy, perseverance, grief, death, loss. forthright, funny, and unflinchingly bold, alexie's memoir reads as much as a purge and self-cleansing as it does an autobiography crafted for his readers.

playing foil to his poignancy, alexie's ribald sense of humor often leaves the reader crying on one page and laughing hysterically the next. the full range of human emotions, many expressed most vehemently, are on ample display within. told in both poetry and prose, you don't have to say you love me is a remarkable reckoning with the past and its often indelible legacy, and the fortitude necessary to triumph beyond it, further proving the national book award-winning author's talents are legion – however borne of pain and suffering.

ah, friend, this world—this one universe—
is already too expansive for me.
when i die, let my mourners know
that i shrugged at the possibility
of other universes. hire a choir—
let them tell the truth
but tell it choral—
let the assembled voices sing
about my theology:
i'm the fragile and finite mortal
who wanted no part of immortality.

...more

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Oct 28, 2017 Ellie rated it really liked it

Shelves: family, american, 2017indchallenge, writers, bio-memoir

Powerful. Engaging. Beautiful. Sad.

This is an account of the author's difficult relationship with a difficult but fascinating mother. It is also a story of what it means to him to be a Native American, what his experience growing up on a reservation was like and what it means to be successful in the white world. He talks about how he is treated both by members of that white world and by the Native Americans who often accuse him of being "white", or, at any rate, not a "true" Indian.

Alexie uses m ...more

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Jun 02, 2020 Diane Barnes rated it liked it

Shelves: bedtime-books

This will be short because I'm not sure what to say about this one. It may be the only memoir I ever read where I'm left at the end knowing less about the author than before I started. I have not read any of Alexie's fiction, so maybe the fault is mine. Some of it was powerful, some of it was confusing, a lot of it was repetitive. ...more

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Jan 24, 2018 Taryn added it

Shelves: 2017-release, bipoc-author, audio

Well, this is horribly disappointing. Deleting my prior review and going to seek out other Native American voices. ...more

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Aug 21, 2017 Jan Priddy rated it did not like it

[Recent news of Alexie's abuse of women (early 2018), confirmation by no less than Joy Harjo that complaints have been ongoing for years, and especially his semi-apology should not surprise anyone. It is clear in his memoir that his perception of suffering is entirely selfish. At no point in this memoir does he reveal any depth of appreciation for the suffering or pain of anyone but himself. Despite his skill as a writer, I never understood the apparent widespread "love" of this book.]

"Believe ...more

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Feb 08, 2017 Pamela rated it it was amazing

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

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Jun 16, 2017 Courtney rated it it was amazing

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. ...more

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Jul 09, 2017 Kony rated it liked it · review of another edition

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

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Jan 05, 2018 britt_brooke rated it it was ok

Shelves: memoir-biography, nonfiction

Writing about grief can’t be easy ... but I really didn’t like this book. Alexie uses incessant repetition as a device. This could’ve easily been half the length. It’s an awkward mix of stream-of-consciousness(esque) rambling and a lot of poetry, much of which is prose poetry, which turns out, I don’t enjoy. I’m a huge memoir fan, but stylistically this did not work for me at all.

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Sep 04, 2017 Shirleen R rated it it was amazing

Shelves: memoirs-and-biographies, writers-of-color-us

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I don't feel worthy to write a review. My contentious relationship w my mother who was gravely ill this year biases my analysis.
Note: Sherman Alexie's memoir is the only text I've read by him. Embarrassed I must confess, I've known of Alexie for 20 years bit never picked up his books. Thus, his poetry surprised me because I didn't know besides his famous debut novel tha he wrote poetry and song lyrics. His screenwriting skills also a surprise. Smoke Signals was my DVD queue for years. yet neve I don't feel worthy to write a review. My contentious relationship w my mother who was gravely ill this year biases my analysis.
Note: Sherman Alexie's memoir is the only text I've read by him. Embarrassed I must confess, I've known of Alexie for 20 years bit never picked up his books. Thus, his poetry surprised me because I didn't know besides his famous debut novel tha he wrote poetry and song lyrics. His screenwriting skills also a surprise. Smoke Signals was my DVD queue for years. yet never realized Sherman Alexie wrote that film's script.

I read for therapeutic personal reasons. To learn how one mourns a mother whom you love and argue and reduce to tears ( mine) within hours together. As Alexie's uncovers and retells and retells of his mother's painful history, as well as admires, praises, marvels at stremgth to earn income via quilting and her children fed and clothed, I found emotional kinship and understanding and even a way to grieve the bond I have and the one I will never have.

Added Sept 5: More stray thoughts, which I need to edit and eliminate redundancy:
His anger, disappointment, love, pride, contentiousness with both his parents and EXACTLY what I needed to read this week, now, esp. after I finished and felt 'meh' about Zinzi Clemmons' debut novel What We Lose last week. in short, Alexie's contradictorily cruel and generous mother reminds me of my own mother who almost died of adrenal cancer 3 months ago. We're just as emotionally distant; like Alexie, weeks pass when we don't speak at all (in alexie's case, it's months).

Just as Alexie's mother is adored, my mother's coworkers and church friends sing her praises about her generosity, her mothering, nurturing. Meanwhile, the empathy chip is just missing in how she regards every 'child to parent' problem I bring to her..... i've heard she boasts about me to others, but can't bring herself to praise me directly. Sherman Alexie gets what I get. It's a relief to share this understanding.

Sherman's Alexie's fictional and factual account and poems about his mother's death and funeral comes closest to resembling how my own mother's funeral might unfold. or how I may grieve or work though this loss. until this book and atul gawande's Being Mortal (which I read this summer as well), I didn't feel as if I could imagine the process, the event. I value most how Alexie writes about his own bodily responses -- he does not cry, and the schatological chapter is gross, but blunt and true.

p.s. I Personally, Alexie's memoir is my most in-depth encounter with contemporary Indian reservation life, Native American history, law, culture, the Spokane Washington environment (the river, toxic dumping in mines near N.A. reservations), transitions from res to urban indian life, et...

CAVEAT -- Alexie did NOT write and intend for his multi-genre memoir to double as a Native American anthropology textbook! I'm quick to decry this pidgeon-holing of creative works by PoC.
Tl;DR. I'm glad I Alexie's auto-fictional mode is my first encounter with how Alexie writes about interpersonal relattionships: siblings, estranged cousins, and mecounts memories of nuns who tortured him, testimonies of sexually-abused indian boys in assimilative boarding schools. etc... Why I prefer in this case a one-degree remove barrier to mediate Alexie's accounts of actual rape, alcoholism, murder, violence, PTSD, terror, poverty, starvation is an entirely new topic.. Suffice it to say: it works for me. ...more

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About Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie

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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