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Title details for And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott - Available

And Then She Fell

A Novel

by Alicia Elliott
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
*NATIONAL BESTSELLER*
*Indigenous Voices Award winner*
*Amazon First Novel Award winner*
*First Nations Communities READ Award winner*
*Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction*
*Named a Globe and Mail and CBC Best Book of the Year*
From the bestselling author of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground comes a mind-bending, gripping novel about Native life, motherhood and mental health that follows a young Mohawk woman who discovers that the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences.
On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be. She's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her charming husband, Steve, is nothing but supportive; and they've recently moved to a wealthy neighborhood in Toronto. And yet, Alice feels like an imposter. She isn't connecting with Dawn, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from her watchful white neighbors. Her growing self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.
At first, Alice is convinced her discomfort is of her own making, but then strange things start happening. She finds herself losing bits of time, hearing voices she can't explain, and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her neighbors' passive-aggressive behavior begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve assures her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong, and that in her creation story lies the key to her and Dawn's survival. . . . She just has to finish it before it's too late.
Told in Alice's darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching look at inherited trauma, womanhood, denial, and false allyship, which speeds to an unpredictable—and surreal—climax.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 26, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780385684118

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780385684118
      • File size: 2365 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 14, 2023
      Elliott (A Mind Spread Out on the Ground) expertly mines the challenges faced by a Mohawk woman as her world threatens to fall apart in this ambitious offering. New mother Alice has moved from the Six Nations reservation to Toronto with her white husband, Steve, and their newborn, Dawn, but now lives with an “inescapable feeling of hopelessness.” As Alice tries to write a “modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee Creation Story” while surrounded by racist neighbors, she feels disconnected from her baby, processes guilt over her mother’s recent death, and worries she’s just a trophy wife as Steve pursues tenure as an anthropologist studying Mohawk culture (“Everything Indigenous seems to have more value when it’s utilized by white folks”). Meanwhile, a voice first heard in childhood through the Disney movie character Pocahontas has begun communicating with Alice once again, as are trees and insects, and she inadvertently discovers a portal to another world. As the reality Alice is clinging to becomes more unstable, she must interpret the creation story for herself to understand the importance of her own life and those of other Mohawk women. This novel is part time travel and part horror, as full of heart as it is bold. Agent: Stephanie Sinclair, CookeMcDermid.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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