I've been coveting this book since before it was released, giving subtle hints and not so subtle kites, trying to make it materialize into my life. I finally found it at Munro's Books in Victoria at the end of August and I forced myself to wait to read it until I could guarantee it my undivided attention. And I have consumed its 450+ pages in less than 48 hours.
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me is a memoir of grief following the death of Alexie's mother Lillian.
Alexie grew up on the Spokane Indian Reserve and escaped through education, words, to become a writer/raconteur who has lived in Seattle for the last two dozen years. I first became aware of him as the writer behind the movie Smoke Signals starring two of my favourite actors, Adam Beach and Evan Adams. Dr. Evan Adams. On the plane to Toronto in 2010 I read The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven which I probably bought, along with Reservation Blues at Village Books in Bellingham. And I found Blasphemy at Bill's Used Books and Bongs in Fort St. John, BC, last summer, when I also found John O'Donohue's Anam Cara, on top of my Amazon list at the time. I include these gratuitous details only as evidence of book-lover's divination -- that we envision what we need and it appears. Or is it the other way around? That the universe knows what we need and when we need it, and we have to learn to pay attention.
You know a book has hooked you when you start marking the passages that you want to read aloud to people you love.
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