And Then She Fell

Longlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction.

On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be in life: she's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her ever-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 wealthy neighbourhood in Toronto, a generous gift from her in-laws.

But Alice could not feel more like an imposter. She isn't bonding with Dawn, a struggle made more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother. Every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their picture-perfect neighbours, amongst whom she's the sole Indigenous resident.

Her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

And then strange things start happening.

Alice finds herself hearing voices she can't explain and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her neighbours' passive aggression begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve urges her this is all in her head, Alice suspects something is very, very wrong, and that her creation story holds the key to her, and Dawn's, survival... She just has to finish it before it's too late.

This is And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott.