Published: September 2023
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
This novel centres around Alice, a young indigenous woman, who on the surface has the most perfect life. She has just given birth to a beautiful baby girl called Dawn and is married to Steve, her charismatic white husband whose academic focus is the study of Mohawk culture. They live in a wealthy area of Toronto and seemingly have everything they could ever need.
Appearances can be deceptive though and Alice begins to struggle to cope. Having lost her mother whose relationship was quite tricky and finding herself isolated in a predominantly white community, Alice’s mental health begins to deteriorate. She feels alone with her baby and finds herself struggling to perform the role of ‘new mother’ in a way that society expects. Whilst she has support from her old female friends from her childhood years, her surrounding neighbours seem hostile and judgemental in a way that leads Alice to feel more isolated.
In an attempt to ground and find herself, she begins to write her version of the Haudenosaunee creation story. It is at this point the book steps outside typical narrative form into something more unusual. Objects and people begin to behave in ways that are unexpected, taking on lives of their own. Alice becomes increasingly unsure, as do we as readers, as to what it real or not. It becomes imperative for Alice to write this book before external or internal forces prevent her. She is convinced that writing this narrative will not only save her life but the life of her young daughter too. It is a book that explores cultural destruction, belonging, motherhood and mental health. It was an astonishing book and quite unlike anything I have ever read before.
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