Will I love You Don't Have to Say You Love Me?

I loved this gorgeous memoir, in part for its compelling structure—a blend of prose and poetry.

The narrator explores his grief in the aftermath of his mother's death, and in doing so, reminded me of the ways in which grief never leaves you, though it changes over time. Alexie seeks to, and succeeds in, animating his mother as the complex and deeply traumatized woman she was. Studying how he portrayed his mother gave me some new ways to think about how I might present my own.

This writer placed his very personal story of grief within the context of larger… show more.

Sherman Alexie gives it everything he’s got in this sprawling, messy, brilliant memoir. Using his mother’s funeral as a jumping-off point, he investigates her chaotic life in an effort to understand the enigma of her personality and the nature of his complicated relationship with her. The contradictions he uncovers, the bits and pieces of information he’s able to glean, and the incongruities in the stories he discovers are stitched together in a narrative he likens to a patchwork quilt: disparate parts brought together that somehow make a whole.

I love the rawness of this memoir, the humor, the mixed genres,… show more.