And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott

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 a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture is nothing but supportive; and they've recently moved into a new home in a wealthy neighborhood in Toronto, a generous gift from her in-laws. But Alice could not feel like more of an imposter. She isn't connecting with Dawn, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their ever-watchful neighbours, among whom she's the sole Indigenous resident.Even when she does have a minute to herself, her perpetual 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. She has gotten everything she always dreamed of, after all. 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 neighbours' passive-aggressive behaviour 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 raw and darkly funny voice,And Then She Fellis an urgent and unflinching look at inherited trauma, womanhood, denial, and false allyship, which speeds to an unpredictable and surreal climax. (From Penguin Random House Canada)

Alicia Elliott is a Mohawk writer living in Brantford, Ontario. She is the author of the nonfiction book A Mind Spread Out on the Ground and the novel And Then She Fell.CBC Books named Elliotta writer to watch in 2019.

• The CBC Books fall reading list: 40 Canadian books to read this season
• Why Alicia Elliott challenges us all to think critically about trauma, oppression and racism in Canada
• Living with lice for a decade became a metaphor for the shame of poverty, says writer Alicia Elliott
• 19 emerging Canadian writers to watch in 2019
• Alicia Elliott publishing first novel get the first look atAnd Then She Fellnow
• The best Canadian fiction of 2023

Interviews with Alicia Elliott

The Sunday Magazine22:11Alicia Elliott on fiction, motherhood and mental illness

Following her acclaimed essay collection A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Mohawk writer Alicia Elliott is back with a new novel that draws on her own deeply personal experiences to tell a story of motherhood, mental illness and intergenerational trauma. And Then She Fell follows Alice, a young Haudenosaunee mother who goes through a kind of looking glass, as she deals with postpartum depression and married life away from her family and traditions. Its a story of difficult truths, told with humour, horror and a bit of surrealism. Elliott joins Rebecca Zandbergen to talk about the novel, the personal experiences that inspired it, and best practices for sharing difficult stories both in fiction and beyond.

Other books by Alicia Elliott