Alicia Elliott's And Then She Fell is a riveting debut novel that follows her transformative memoir A Mind Spread Out on the Ground. Much like the literary Matriarchs who made way for Indigenous intellectual thought, transcending western literary genres, Elliot’s prose offers emotional depth that weaves storytelling with the everyday contemporary realities of Indigenous womanhood. As a novel defined as realist fiction on the cusp of fantasy and horror, And Then She Fell is a brilliant “wonderwork” as it shapeshifts between realism and the fantastical (Justice 2018). Through universal themes of intergenerational trauma, daily experiences of racism, language loss, and navigating the early days of motherhood amidst colonial violence, And Then She Fell, is a beautiful reminder of the matrilineal roots that bind generations of Haudenosaunee women and girls.
Jennifer Brant (Thu,) studied this question.