PRAISE FOR ALONE: A LOVE STORY
This is a lyrical tribute to the intoxicating, dramatic, destructive, and ultimately empowering nature of love. I could not stop reading Michelle’s story, and now I cannot stop thinking about it.
— ANNA MARIA TREMONTI, acclaimed journalist and broadcaster
Page by page, Michelle Parise’s story of love, betrayal, loss, and ultimately redemption is filled with moments of grace, humour, pain, hope, and wisdom. Beautifully and powerfully written, Alone: A Love Story left me heartbroken and inspired at the same time.
— TERRY FALLIS, bestselling author of Albatross
Michelle Parise is the best company. Her passion and humour leap off the page.
— CAMILLA GIBB, internationally acclaimed author
When someone hurts you deeply (like, REALLY deeply), it can turn you into a special correspondent from the wreckage that is your own heartbreak. It may take all your self-control not to grab strangers by the shirt collar and shout, “He hurt me!” When Michelle Parise’s life blew up, she did the more socially acceptable and thoughtful version of this: she wrote her own love story. It’s brave, resonant, and oh so raw. In Alone: A Love Story, Michelle turns her greatest shock into a story that lets you get close enough to feel its sting and understand its nuance. Her book doubles as a survival guide for when it’s your turn to rethink your relationship with love itself. Plus, Michelle Parise channels some seriously steamy Canadian Bridget Jones divorcee realness, and I’m here for it.
— ANDREA SILENZI, host of the podcast Why Oh Why
For anyone who has had a marriage fall apart, Alone: A Love Story is a book to keep close. Parise is unflinching as she reports back from her broken heart and, as strange as this might seem, comforts by showing us the way from loneliness to standing tall . . . and alone.
— LAURIE BROWN, music journalist and host of Pondercast
Michelle Parise’s writing makes me feel like I can be more myself. She is remarkable at rendering the (nearly) universal human experience of deceit into a tightly woven tapestry of vulnerability, rawness, and humour, and while she’s doing it, makes you contemplate your inner life with more acceptance and compassion.
— BRITT WRAY, Ph.D., broadcaster, and author of Rise of the Necrofauna
Alone: A Love Story is an emotional memoir of a life exploded — the end of a marriage, referred to as The Bomb — and the chaos that follows. But it’s also about what blooms in the wreckage. Beautifully written, intimate, alive, and accessible, the story flows like a conversation with your most interesting, wise, and exciting friend.
— EMILY URQUHART, author of Beyond the Pale
You know that feeling, when a close friend shares a secret with you? The rush of surprise and empathy you get, as you hear the most intimate and heartbreaking details of someone’s life? Michelle Parise has turned us into confidantes, revealing her experiences of love, dating, and divorce. Alone: A Love Story is equal parts pain and hope, served with a side of laughs — and we’re all wiser for it.
— DUNCAN McCUE, CBC Radio host and author of The Shoe Boy
How do you know when an ending is actually a beginning? What’s it like to love the ones we can’t be with? Ardent, urgent, and honest, Parise’s wildly intimate voice reminds us that as long as we are feeling — feeling longing or loss, collapse or curiosity, the things that make us human — we are never really alone.
— ADRIAN McKERRACHER, author of What It Means to Write
Alone: A Love Story is a courageous and full-throttled confessional. Michelle Parise has written a fierce and compassionate book about losing yourself to grief and then finding yourself again with humour and grace.
— DAEMON FAIRLESS, journalist and author of Mad Blood Stirring
Alone: A Love Story is a universal, human, female experience; it’s a homecoming and a reckoning. Parise took her story, one of pain, rage, and ultimately hope, and decided to own it, to reframe it, to tell it to the world on her terms. Alone: A Love Story tells a unique, nuanced story of healing. We’ve seen enough stories about self-destructive “lost” women. Parise explores the more real female narrative: we bleed but we’re masters at covering it up. Parise’s writing is addictively, heartbreakingly great. She will inspire you and she will devastate you, and you will be better for it.
— KATIE BOLAND, actor, writer, and filmmaker
Dating, love, marriage, parenthood, and scrape-yourself-off-the-floor heartbreak is illuminated in Alone: A Love Story. Michelle takes us into the heart’s dark corners with dark humour and deep honesty, pouring out her story like a funny, fierce friend who trusts you with everything. I don’t know anyone who won’t see themselves somewhere in this story (but be glad Michelle’s the one doing the telling). Ultimately, Alone: A Love Story gives us something we all want: to feel less alone.
— CHRISTA COUTURE, author of How to Lose Everything
PRAISE FOR THE PODCASTALONE: A LOVE STORY
Michelle Parise knows how to shape and deliver a story that will keep you coming back for more.
— THE ATLANTIC
The storytelling is exemplary. The way the narrative unfolds, moving back and forth in time, conjures up the full scope of emotion — horror and anxiety and wonder and happiness. Parise’s is a very particular story but in many ways it’s universal and familiar. The thing I’m most struck by is the neat way she walks the tightrope between hope and despair, darkness and light.
— SHARON BALA, author of The Boat People
ALONE
A LOVE STORY
MICHELLE PARISE
ALONE
A LOVE STORY
Copyright © Michelle Parise, 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Publisher: Scott Fraser | Acquiring editor: Kathryn Lane | Editor: Jess Shulman
Cover designer: Laura Boyle
Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Alone : a love story / Michelle Parise.
Names: Parise, Michelle, 1974- author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200178423 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200178466 | ISBN 9781459746909 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459746916 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459746923 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Parise, Michelle, 1974- | LCSH: Parise, Michelle, 1974-—Relations with men. | LCSH: Dating (Social customs) | LCSH: Man-woman relationships. | LCSH: Single mothers. | LCSH: Parenthood.
Classification: LCC HQ801 .P37 2020 | DDC 306.73092—dc23