People flow in and out of our lives all the time. Bosses, co-workers, acquaintances, friends, family, and sadly, romantic partners. What we know of them is scandalously little. What’s happening in the interior monologue of their lives is often blockaded by emotions that range from pride to shame.
That smile that someone brings to the office every morning, that practiced mask of calm, or the hollow and rehearsed, “Have a great day,” underscores the flimsiness of what we really know about the people in our inner and outer life orbits.
It’s not often that these walls crumble and people, even those very close to us, let us in for a view of the “essential them.” Why? Because often it’s not a pretty picture. Despite our insistent need for heroes, we are light and dark.
That’s why Alone: A Love Story is such a powerful audio experience. To be clear, the podcast ran for three seasons, starting in September 2017.
Alone: A Love Story is an award-winning CBC podcast and audio memoir by Michelle Parise that chronicles the breakdown of her marriage due to an affair, subsequent divorce, and navigating life as a 40-year-old single mother. Known for its candid, intimate storytelling, it explores loneliness, heartbreak, and dating.
The series follows Parise as she navigates the end of her marriage to “The Scientist,” the fallout, and her subsequent journey through dating and finding herself again.
Parise narrates the story herself, often using an intimate, “diary-like” style that makes listeners feel as though a close friend is sharing a personal story. The show covers complex themes such as the loneliness of divorce, part-time parenting, postpartum depression, and the search for self-love.
Michelle Parise is an award-winning journalist, writer, and performer. She has worked for the CBC for more than two decades, in everything from children’s television to music programming and documentary making, as well as at the helm of many national radio programs.
In her bio on CBC Radio, Michelle announces, “Since 1996, I’ve worked for CBC Radio and TV, in news, current affairs, drama, and music. For the past decade+, I’ve been the Senior Producer of Spark, a show about technology and culture that was also one of the first podcasts from CBC, way back in ole 2007.”
In the final Chapter 28, Michelle says, “I’m ready to be chased. To be adored.” It’s a declaration of intent, but also of a breakthrough.
Writer Alex Dueben reviewed the show, and his words encapsulate the show’s essence. “I’ve binged listened to every episode of this brilliant, incisive, heartbreaking, awe-inspiring podcast. Over three seasons, Parise recounts how she met her husband and their marriage, the birth of their daughter, and then, the bomb.”
Dueben ends with an insight that captures the emotional temperature of her audio memoir: “There were moments in this show where Parise was able to capture such vivid moments of joy, of pain, of longing.”
A book based on the series was later published in May 2020. I’ve read it. The memoir perfectly encapsulates the dualistic nature of our quest for long-term relationships. Sometimes they work out, and other times, there’s pain and heartbreak.
Here’s how I discovered this podcast. I was contacted several months ago by Michelle with a message that she was interested in doing a radio piece about a Recent Forbes article I had published about the popularity of history podcasts. Michelle explained that she needed a few audio quotes from me for the piece.
I was nervous about the interview because I’m a writer. Coherence, logic, insights, and flashes of intelligence do not stem from my rudimentary verbal skills. Michelle interviewed me for 30 minutes, and during that interval, I sounded like someone with severe and multiple neurological conditions.
A week later, Michelle sent me the audio file of the CBC Radio piece. Before I hit the PLAY arrow, I thought to myself that this must be what it is like to suffer utter humiliation. I thought of scenarios such as striking out with the bases loaded in Game 7 of the World Series, or solving the puzzle on Wheel Of Fortune by saying to Ryan, “Saved By The Bowl” in response to a puzzle about classic TV shows.
As the CBC radio piece played and my brief quotes were expertly interspersed within a narrative about history podcasts, I discovered that I had nothing to worry about. Michelle Parise was a pro and made it seem so seamless. She did the impossible and made me sound at least smarter than a fifth-grader. I was eternally grateful.
In our initial conversation, Michelle had told me about Alone: A Love Story, and I had listened to about half the episodes. After our second conversation about how the radio spot went, I thought to myself, “How do we never really know what people are going through?”
If Michelle Parise had not pulled open the curtains to her life in 2017 and beyond, I never would have known what she — and many others like her — went through. Many of us go through life’s meat grinder. But as we’ve always heard, no one wants to know how the sausage is made. Thanks to Michelle Parise, we know, and we are better off for it.
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