And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott [Fiction Review]

Summary 💬

On the surface, Alice is exactly where she thinks 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 moved into a new home in a posh Toronto neighborhood. But Alice could not feel like more of an impostor. She isn’t connecting with her daughter, 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 neighbors, 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 her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

Then strange things start to happen. She finds herself losing bits of time and hearing voices she can’t explain, 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.

Goodreads

Review ✍🏻

I am not great at reviewing books like And Then She Fell. That is, realistic adult fiction that has racial identity as a key element. The stories are so far removed from my own lived experiences that I don’t feel I can review them adequately. No one cares what my thoughts on such books are! (And rightly so.) But this is my blog, my corner of the world where I share my thoughts on books, so even if I can’t write an eloquent critical review, that doesn’t mean I should forego sharing a few thoughts altogether. At the very least, I can help boost a book’s exposure. So here I go.

It is truly incredible that readers have access to stories like these. As I mentioned above, Alice’s experiences are far removed from my own – she’s married, she’s a new mother, she’s Indigenous (Mohawk from Six Nations), she lived on a reserve until she married, both her parents have died, she can’t trust that her sense are showing her reality. If we want to get even more specific, I could say she’s married to an academic whose racial background differs greatly from her own, she has a terrible MIL, she lives in a house in Toronto, etc. Like I said, so. far. removed. With the circles I run in and the circles Alice runs in, we’d likely never meet. I’d never be privvy to someone’s personal life in this way. So I am reminded of how grateful I am that I have access to stories like And Then She Fell.

And Then She Fell is often funny, in a horrific kind of way, and it’s horrific in an everyday kind of way for most of the story. I can jive with that, mostly. I felt a bit bogged down by around 70% of the way through (so much creeping dread), but when at last the horror dials up to 11, I sped through the rest of the story. Everything comes to a head in an emotional and cathartic experience that may just make you tear up, if you are that sort of reader.

The Bottom Line 💭

A cutting debut from a writer known for her incisive essays, And Then She Fell is a must read for those who enjoy stories about personal identity and the darker experiences of the myriad ways impostor syndrome can manifest.

Further Reading 📰

🍂 Read an excerpt
🍂 Author LinkTr.ee
🍂 “What’s Unreal is Real: Alicia Elliott on the Tired Trope of Madness in Fiction“
🍂 Interview @ The Nerd Daily
🍂 Review by Lindsay @ Topaz Literary
🍂 Related: For more books for adult by Indigenous writers, check out Black Water, Indigeous Writes, or Starlight.

Do you read realistic horror?
What other 2023 Indigenous-authored books would you recommend?