When his mother passed away at the age of seventy-eight, Sherman Alexie responded the only way he knew how: he wrote. The result is this stunning memoir. Featuring seventy-eight poems and seventy-eight 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.
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