Test. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. So pleased to welcome novelist and poet Sherman Alexi back. With more than two dozen published works, hes out with a memoir titled, you dont have to say you love me. Its a collage of essays and poems about his childhood on a spokane indian reservation and complicated relationship with his manager. She with his mother. Happen honor to have you back. Thank you. Im curious as to how you felt when you saw the cover art. When i saw it in broken, fraying photo in the center, and that title, you dont have to say you love me, before i got into this, it hit me. It made me cry the first time i saw the cover art. Its the first draft of the cover art. It was perfect. It made me cry. That is not me on the cover with my mother. That is my big sister with the broken frame and two women who died. My big sister died in a house fire. My mother died in july of 2015 of cancer. Uhhuh. So it is a photo of a mother and daughter, and and theyre gone. And the loss, you dont have to say you love me, the Dusty Springfield song. One of the sadder songs ever recorded. One of the it encapsulates all my grief in one image. Why did you go with that title . You know, i searched and searched and searched, and then i looked up the top ten hits of my birth year, 1966. Uhhuh. And you dont have to say you love me was number two. And as soon as i read it on the well, i remember hearing it from my youth. My mom saying a lot. So my mom was always singing the top 40 songs. I remember her singing, you dont have to say you love me. And in fact, as soon as i titled that, then i started remembering other songs she used to sing that i include in the book. She sang, im not lisa, by jess colter. She sang a lot of linda ronstadt, dolly parton. The idea of naming this book after a a pop song just seemed perfect. Yeah. This theres a piece on page 1, page 113, i think. A piece that i want you to read. I think its probably encapsulates nicely what the story is that you tell in the book. But the piece is called utensil. I wonder if you can read it for me. Utensil. While feasting on venison stew after we buried my mother, i recognized my spoon and realized my family had been using it for at least 42 years. How does one commemorate the ordinary . I thanked the spoon for being a spoon and finished my stew. How does one get through a difficult time . How does the son properly mourn his mother . It helps to run the errands, to get it done. I washed that spoon, dried it, and put it back in the drawer. But i did it consciously, paying attention to my hands, my wrists, and the feel of steel against my fingertips. Then my wife drove us back home to seattle where i wrote this poem about ordinary grief. Thank you, poem, for being a poem. Thank you, paper and ink, for being paper and ink. Thank you, desk, for being a desk. Thank you, mother, for being my mother. Thank you for your imperfect love. It almost worked, it mostly worked or partly worked. It was almost enough. Okay. Let me get myself together here. Why was your mothers love imperfect . Like many native american women now and in the past, she was a target for all sorts of violence and oppression and racism and misogyny. And i think the pain she endured growing up prevented her from some ways fully expressing her love, being able to fully trust the world. So i think in some ways she was not built to be a mother. It was more like bluecollar labor for her, i think. I think she had to concentrate. And the things she ended up being, the things she could do was she was dependable. She was a worker. My father was a random alcoholic. My mother sobered up and became the breadwinner. She was the one who paid the bills, bought the groceries. She was the one who kept the electricity on. In a lot of ways, she ended up being my mother and my father. Shee she ended up fulfilling every gender role inside of our family. And she did it without being very affectionate. I can remember her hugging me twice in my life. So its interesting to talk about a mother that way, of not having an affectionate mother, and i get very jealous when i meet people who have or have had affectionate mothers. I did not. This is real sensitive territory for you because you wrote it, and for me for different reasons. But i wonder whether or not you think your mother was i dont want to call it a question. Why do you think your mother was not affectionate . Was it it wasnt intentional. I think because of the abuse, because she was sexually abused, because she was raped, i think it cut off a part of her emotional life. I think it it prevented her if fully expressing herself emotionally. I think her scar tissue was very deep. Uhhuh. Did your siblings feel the same way . Its interesting if wrin writing the memoir, i was calling my sisters a lot. My brother less so, but my sisters to fact check myself and test our memories against each other. In writing the memoir, i came to realize that my siblings were much better children than i was, and that my mother was a much better mother to them. What id come to realize is that my siblings, my brothers and sisters, are far more like my father who was a very passive, gentle person. And my mother was this arrogant, opinionated, domineering, ambitious person, and im very much like her. And also i think she was undiagnosed bipolar. And i am diagnosed bipolar. So i think because i say in the book that we lived our lives on parallel roller coaster tracks. I think we were built to fight each other. When you say your siblings were better children, you mean what . They were more affectionate. They stayed. They saw her more. They took care of her more. They were there for her. They were far more dependable and far more of an everyday presence in her life than i was. Is that an indictment against yourself . I would call it that, yes. Yeah. One of the things in writing a memoir i didnt want to come off as heroic. I wanted this memoir to be about the ways in which i failed my mother as well as the ways in which i think she failed me. I did fail her. At some point no matter how bad a mother she was to me as a child, at some point as an adult, i chose to be a bad son. I chose not to pursue forgiveness. I chose to keep my anger precious. So in that way, i failed her. By keeping your anger precious, you mean . Holding on to it. Valuing it. Making my anger making my anger toward her such a part of the way i lived in the world that i couldnt see any other alternative. I couldnt forgive. I couldnt forget. I couldnt let it go. The obvious question, as you well know, that every viewer no doubt has watching this, is, well, what happened . What happened if if you indicted yourself into your adulthood, what happened to even make you want to much less sit down to write it, but even want to dig into your past . Well, my mother died in july, 2015. Poems just roared out of me. About 75 poems in a month. Id never written about her. Id only written fiction before. This is my first nonfiction, and id never written about her even in fictional form. Not really. She was always absent from my work. I was scared of her. I was scared of her magic and power and rage and her love. When she died, it gave me permission to start thinking about her. One of the Amazing Things i realized is i spent my whole career thinking my father was the primary engine behind my storytelling. He was the one who talked. He was the one who went on long drives with me and told me stories about his childhood. He was the one who who gave me autobiography. And my mom didnt. In writing the memoir, i realized that she, the artistic force she was one of the last fluent speakers of our tribal language. Theyre resurrecting it now, but she was one of the last oldtime speakers. She was a pow wow dancer, a pow wow person. She was traditional. She was one of the elders of the tribe. All this knowledge. She was the one who most directly connected to thousands and thousands of years of tribal traditions, storytelling traditions. And i never thought of her that way until after she was gone. How much of your relationship or lack thereof with your mother had to do with what you said a moment ago, sherman, that is your fear of her, your being scared of her . Oh, her judgment. Her judgment. Not being good enough. Not being loved enough. Not loving her enough. I never felt like i measured up to her. And the thing is because of her, what i think was her bipolar disorder, she was completely emotionally unpredictable. She could rage at you for no reason. She could be tender. She would work all night on quilts to make money so wed have food to eat. So she was incredibly dedicated to one thing at a time or to everything at a time. You could never get a handle on her. And it was just easier to run away from her than it was to be in her presence. I dont know that i discovered this going through the text, going through the book, but how much of the difference you obviously you mentioned your sisters and brothers. How much of the difference in the relationship between you and your mom had to do with your gender . Im trying to get at you know what im getting at. Your sisters had a different rapport with your mother. And my brothers had a different yeah. You know, i had a really tough time writing this book and being honest about my mother. I was very worried that i would come off as being misogynistic. That i would become less of a son being mad at a woman, at a man being mad at a woman. I was concerned about that. I think it was less about gender and more about we shared a mental illness. I think it ended up being that she and i were the most alike. And i think thats why we fought so often. I always thought of myself as being my fathers son. One of the working titles of this memoir was, my mothers son. And i think thats what ive discovered that i am. That she is my primary parent. If your mother was undiagnosed bipolar as you believe she was, and you have acknowledged that you are diagnosed bipolar yeah. That theres a real answer to this question. Im going to ask it anyway, which is if you could go back and change anything about that relationship, do you know what that would be . I write about it in the book. You know, one of the things i realized i dont think my mother was ever adored. Yeah. You know . And being a native woman from her generation, any generation, nobody adored her. And i think if somebody had adored her, if there had been people there to adore her, that she could have been somebody incredible, amazing. She had all these gifts and talents and ambitions. And i think if somebody had been there to protect her, somebody had been there to protect her dreams, to protect her soul, it would have been different. I say this with respect. A lot of baggage to carry through life, as if you didnt already know that. Thats thats a lot of luggage, sherman. Yes. When, where, how did you come to believe, accept, or become courageous enough to know or to convince yourself that with all that bag ang baggage, you cou still be a worthy partner in a relationship . Im still working on that. Youll have to ask my wife. Ive been married for 24 years. For almost half my life. Im doing okay. Somethings working. But you tell me, was that ever intimidating . Yes. Yeah. Im married to an indigenous woman. I married a native american woman. We have two sons. And often, i mean, my wife is also an incredibly powerful, magnetic, charismatic person. At times she scares and intimidates me in similar ways. But in writing this book and sharing this journey with her, with my mothers death and examining my mothers death, i think weve become closer. She read i didnt let her read the book until you were down until i was done. She read it, and the things she said is, the first thing she said is, i feel cherished. And i thought well, good, because you are. Maybe you said more than that, and this is on television. You dont have to say any more if thats all you want to say. But it seems to me that if your wife, given that you will youve described to us tonight about your mother, what she did not feel, what she did not receive, if your wife reads your manuscript and she says nothing else other than i feel cherished, thats got to feel like thats powerful. Thats arresting. I mean, its like my most important audience. My most important reader. The most important person in my life. And i wrote something that honors her. She feels honored, so yes. My point is, obviously, one less native woman who was made to feel the way your mother felt. I hope so, yes. Yes. And i think my sisters, as well. My little sisters, theyre twins. I think im loving the reviews. And people talk about how funny and smart and witty they are in the book and how they challenge me. And they contradict me, and they mock me. I think their power comes through in the book, as well. My amazing sisters. And shelly boyd who was the wife of one of my best friends who died. Shes learning the language and became close to my mother. I think her power and her efforts to speak salesh again and to establish a school to speak our tribal languages again. I think the power of women is in the book. Speaking of the power of women, we talked about one of the women on the front of the book, your mother. Tell me about the other. Yes. My big sister, mary. My half sister, who was this you know, as i say in the book, my memories are of this incredibly romantic figure. She ran away to hit ashbury in 70s and got pregnant. And shes incredibly beautiful, like my mother, and smart and charming. I didnt know then that romantic heroes are often aimless nomads in disguise. And my sister died in a drunken house fire with her husband when i was 14. So it was one of the major deaths in my life one of the major griefs. And she was the first person who ever told me i could be a writer. I had written a little short story in fourth grade, a halloween story. And she read it it scared her, she said. Mission accomplished. Yes. You did your job. And at that point as a poor, reservation indian kid, the idea of becoming a writer, the idea of becoming anything seemed like going to the moon or going to mars. So the fact that my sister said that all those years ago resonated. And she died the year i left the Reservation School to go to the White High School on the border. I lost eight people in two years. A close relative. So it felt like a curse, like me leaving had caused it to happen. Of course, thats a narcissistic way of looking at it. But its hard not to look at it that way when youre 14 and 15 years old. Narcissistic im reminded of the lategreat, maya angie a maya angelou, and the man who raped her was killed. I dont see that as narcissistic. Speaking of leaving the White High School to go from the reservation, people know the trouble you got into. Some people at schools wont let your book be read. Youre parttime indian, has gotten you into trouble here and there. I wonder how much of this relationship with your mom or lack thereof, the stories you tell in this beautiful book, how much of that influenced your decision to get off the reservation, and whether or not revisiting that childhood has made you rethink a decision obviously that you cant change at this point. Have you rethought that decision . Well, my mom always, you know, half in admiration and half insultingly always said i was born with a suitcase in my hand. That i was always leaving. My sisters during the course of this book said that, too, that they always knew i was leaving. So i think i was born to leave. Uhhuh. And ive lived in the city now naturefor 25 years. And i realized that a lot of my sadness as a kid certainly had a lot to do with poverty and alcohol addiction and my Mental Illnesses and all the brain surgeries i had. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that i was born to live in the city. We often think of native americans as being born to live, you know in the wilderness. In the forests and the deserts, closely connected to nature. I think i was born to live in crowds. Im happiest in crowds. Can you leave your people without leaving your people . And when you leave can they accept that youre not leaving your people . When you come from a very specific like it we do, i think you do leave your people. Then i think you spend the rest of your life reclaiming pieces of what you left behind. I think every one of my books is a way to reclaim something i left behind. I think this book is a way to reclaim my mother. As you reclaim your mother, what do you intend to do with her . Im just starting that ceremony. I realized writing the book was the first half of this, and now going out into the world with it and talking to you, talking to audiences, having people read it, responding and thinking. And hearing other peoples stories about their relationship with their mothers, i think thats where ill be carrying her into all these other stories im going to hear. We talked a little bit, sherman, about now your life has impacted your relationship with your wife. Talk a little about that. Im curious to know how its impacted your choices as a parent. Based upon your back story, what kind of parent did you want to be, and have you become that, or are you becoming the kind of parent you wanted to be . We have two sons. You cant predict who youre going to have. We have two sons, so i certainly wanted to raise them to be very respectful of women. To be very respectful of native women in particular. I think weve done that. I wanted kindness above all else. Kindness. I want to have kind men, and i think my wife and i have done a good job. Thats not oxymoronic to be kind and male . Kindness over all. Yeah. Yeah. All these years later, ive spent some time on reservations here or there for interviews and other events. Standing rock last year, as a matter of fact. Yeah. Whats your sense of how much better, worse, the same women today are treated on the reservation . You know, native american women socially speaking deal with more violence and more poverty, more social problems than any other group of people in the United States and canada. They are the primary targets of so much hatred and animosity within and from inside and outside the communities. And that has gotten better somewhat, at least theres more voices talking about it. But it still persists. In fact, in canada, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of Indigenous Women who have gone missing. Every day i see on the internet somebody else has gone missing. So it continues to be an epic problem for Indigenous Women. Andy with need to and we need to continue to speak about it, to use our voices, to promote the voices of Indigenous Women and their stories and power and to celebrate and honor them and to listen to Indigenous Women. Can i have my book back, please . Yes, you can. It is a powerful book. And i suspect this conversation i hope at least to some degree has convinced you of that. So much so that you might want to read it. Its called you dont have to say you love me. Its a memoir by the brilliant awardwinning writer Sherman Alexie, winner of the National Book award. Sherman, great conversation again. Thank you. Thanks for coming to see me, my friend. Thats our show for tonight. Thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. For more information on todays show, visit tavissmiley pbs. Org. Hi, join me next time for a discussion with roger corman and blues giants. Thats next time. See you then. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Be more, pbs. 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