• You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

  • A Memoir
  • By: Sherman Alexie
  • Narrated by: Sherman Alexie
  • Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (1,805 ratings)

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You Don't Have to Say You Love Me  By  cover art

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

By: Sherman Alexie
Narrated by: Sherman Alexie
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Publisher's summary

One of the most anticipated books of 2017 - Entertainment Weekly and Bustle

A searing, deeply moving memoir about family, love, and loss from a critically acclaimed, best-selling 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 and 78 essays, Alexie shares raw, angry, funny, profane, tender memories of a childhood few can imagine - growing up dirt poor on an Indian reservation, one of four children raised by alcoholic parents. Throughout, a portrait emerges of his mother as a beautiful, mercurial, abusive, intelligent, complicated woman. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me is a powerful account of a complicated relationship, an unflinching and unforgettable remembrance.

©2017 Sherman Alexie (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Sherman Alexie narrates his powerful memoir with acute emotion and vulnerability.... Alexie's narration is extremely personal. He will make you cry, yes, and then make you laugh hard enough to wake your sleeping children; be warned." ( AudioFile)

What listeners say about You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Average customer ratings
Overall
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  • 08-01-17

A Painful Gift

You don't hear people talk much about their complicated and painful relationships with their mothers, but you especially don't hear it much in Native circles. Mr. Alexie, you've given visibility and a social permission to feel the pain and isolation of being the son or daughter of a complicated mother. Thank you for sharing your gifts, stories, and pain. This was beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking, and resilient. Anyone who has a mother can learn from and love this book.

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40 people found this helpful

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True connection

This was the best book I have ever listened to. The author's stories about his life and his growth over time helped me to better understand myself. He shared himself. He shared life on the Rez. He did it with real emotion.

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32 people found this helpful

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Riveting

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely! It made me revisit my own difficulties with my hyper-religious mother with whom I never had a close relationship while she lived.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Lillian was certainly a favorite character because living on the Navajo reservation for 8 months one year I saw how phenomenal the women were and how they held up their families and culture.

Have you listened to any of Sherman Alexie’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, his inflection when he spoke "Indian" was wonderful to hear.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Lillian, a real Super Woman.

Any additional comments?

Mr. Alexie, Thank you for this book. It's stirred up a host of issues for me. It was difficult to hear because of my own guilt about how I often showed my own mother such little respect for her choices. I'm slowly understanding why she did what she did now that she's long gone.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Unremitting Negativity

I listened to the first three of the twelve total hours and had to stop. Those hours included a description of animal torture, an extensive scatological section that was completely gratuitous, and comparing how the Native American children were treated at school to the tortures at Guantanomo (sp?) Bay with a description of the tortures at Guantanomo Bay.
It was interesting and long overdue that a Native American's voice is heard on a large scale - to learn that on the reservations some traditional culture survives. Alexie's point of the extreme violence and degradation of the contemporary culture is clearly made. It is horrific and unjust. The book is also well written and has poetic moments but I could not take the detailed relentless negativity. Perhaps as the book progresses it gets better. I just could not bear to find out. Also Alexie reads it well - sometimes as a poet would read his work and the sing song lilt of the Native American speech is charming to hear.

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19 people found this helpful

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A Voice for this Time

In this polarized time, Sherman Alexie has expressed the experience of feeling judged and the pain of racism brilliantly without rancor and still hitting the mark with every thought. He expresses grief at so many levels. His grief is a metaphor for my grief for our country! This is a powerful must read for everyone - I wish it could be a high school requirement but, as pointed out by the author/narrator, his work is considered inappropriate. In fact, it is what our country needs right now, regardless of your political view. Tender, sensitive and raw.

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Sherman Alexie dances with words.

If you could sum up You Don't Have to Say You Love Me in three words, what would they be?

Honor our elders.

What was one of the most memorable moments of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me?

The impact of the metaphor of Mr. Alexie nakedly owning the acne scars of his back and revealing them openly to his wife and embracing them brought home the power of healing relationships and acceptance.

What about Sherman Alexie’s performance did you like?

Mr. Alexie's repetition of his stories and phrases within the stories created both the image of repetative patterns as in his mother's quilts and musical refrains.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The story of Mr. Alexie's conscious decision not to be present at his mother's death flooded me with memories of my own mother's death a little more than two months after undergoing surgery to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm and suffering almost every possible post operative medical complication. I, too, was not present at my mother's death. To quote Jennifer James, a Seattle talk show psychologist, "I did the best I could with what I had at the time." as did Mr. Alexie. Unlike Mr. Alexie, I persued medicine as a career so his stories of his own medical condition and the conditions of his family resonate. Mr. Alexie shares both his triumphs and his pain with grace and dignity.

Any additional comments?

"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be obtained." ~Marie Curie Lillian Alexie was right. Her son's gift is story telling, in English, and he has found his voice.

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17 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Best memoir ever! Wish I could give it 8 stars!

Sherman Alexie is funny, real, emotional, honest, and beautiful. I frequently am disappointed with writers as readers. Not this one! I love his native-American cadence. When his voice breaks as he speaks of intense events with his mother, I cried. I loved this book so much that as soon as I finished it, I missed him so much that I immediately listened to it again.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Grief-Stricken Ramblings

I loved Part Time Indian, and thought this memoir would be just my thing. Alexie is a wonderful writer, but this book was hard to take. It wasn’t as much about his relationship with his mom as about his grief after her death. These are expressed as free associative mini- essays, poems, and random thoughts. The book needed a good editor for it to be palatable. One third the way through, I was getting more and more annoyed with his rants and continual mention of being “rich and famous.” He may a recognized excellent writer, but he shouldn’t get a pass on writing a decent memoir.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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Could have done with about half as much!

I really enjoyed the first four hours...the author' s reading was absolutely magical. Around hour six I was starting to panic when I realized I wasn't even half-way through! I enjoyed the storytelling, his past, his present and the emotional turmoil around his relationship with his mother and her death. I was not quite as interested in his poetry but his reading did help me hear it with a new perspective. But when he says that grief is repetitive....I believe his grief! I stayed the course and finished it because I do enjoy some of his other writing and I appreciate how hard such honesty can be. But I can't tell you how glad I was to be finished!
3.5 stars

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The poetry of Grief

Alexie's history as a poet shines in this book. It echoes and repeats much as grief does. I found myself rationing my listening time because I never wanted it to end.

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