You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

            In the aftermath of his mother’s death in 2015, Sherman Alexie examines her influences on his life. He tries to reconcile her role as a healer in their Native community with her sometimes cruel parenting, and he explores the factors that made them both what they are.

            A Spokane-Couer d’Alene man who grew up not only in poverty on a reservation but also with seizure-inducing hydrocephalus, Alexie could fill volumes just on the suffering he and his family have endured. But Alexie has never been one to grab the low-hanging fruit, and therein lies his brilliance. While You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me does indeed catalog accounts of poverty, substance abuse, sexual abuse, bullying, and more, Alexie also weaves in moments of tenderness and quite a bit of his now-familiar dark humor. This willingness to confront life’s complexities can be found throughout this memoir. Alexie both slams the late Lillian Alexie for her anger and verbal abusiveness while also honoring her as a survivor and a stabilizing force. He condemns years of white oppression while also excoriating his Indian abusers and the stifling reservation climate of conformity that allows abuse to go unchecked. He blends bullying woes and basketball triumphs, alternates between recounting the facts of his life and imagining hypothetical lives unlived (i.e. “What if I had stayed on the reservation?”) and switches seamlessly between prose and poetry.

            This constant movement may prove disorienting and perhaps distracting for the uninitiated, and Alexie’s recounting does become thematically repetitive after a while. To the frustration of some, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me is not a taut narrative but a sprawling, deeply personal work of introspection.

However, the honesty of Alexie’s insights provides adequate motivation to overlook the book’s structural lapses and idiosyncrasies. As a bonus, the author narrates the audiobook version and gives an impassioned reading throughout. This is a must-read (or listen) for those who want to see how adversity can be handled with compassion.

8.5/10