The Falling Woman

by Pat Murphy

Elizabeth Waters, an archaeologist who abandoned her husband and daughter years ago to pursue her career, can see the shadows of the past. It's a gift she keeps secret from her colleagues and students, one that often leads her to incredible archaeological discoveries and the realization that she might be going mad. Then on a dig in the Yucatan, the shadow of a Mayan priestess speaks to her. Suddenly Elizabeth's daughter Diane arrives, hoping to reconnect with her mother. As mother, daughter and priestess fall into the mysterious world of Mayan magic, it is clear one will be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Time Travel, Horror, Mystery

288 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1986

About the author

Pat Murphy’s latest short story collection is called "Women Up to No Good," a title that describes Pat’s attitude in general. Pat writes about strong women who are not afraid of making trouble.

Pat's fiction has won multiple awards for her science fiction and fantasy works, including the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Philip K Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and the Christopher Award. Her latest novel, "The Adventures of Mary Darling," is a historic fantasy -- a subversive take on Peter Pan (with a side helping of Sherlock Holmes). It will be out in May 2025 from Tachyon Publications.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Narrated in alternating first-person narratives by archaeologist Elizabeth Butler and her adult daughter Diane, Falling Woman explores relationships between individuals, between past and present, between theory abstract and reality, between physical environment and culture.

Elizabeth, a long-divorced expert on Mayan archaeology, is in the process of excavating at Dzibilichaltun when her daughter arrives unannounced. Diane lost her father, her job, and her boyfriend (who turned out to be married) in the span of two weeks. Suffering from insomnia and emotional distress, she decides to seek out the mother whom she has seen increasingly little of over the years since her parents divorced.

Neither mother or daughter are good at expressing their feelings, and the reunion is an awkward one, although both are pleased to see one another again. Making their reconciliation more fraught are hidden fears of insanity which both suffer and neither vocalizes. Elizabeth is able to see and hear shadows of the past (these seem to be real and not delusions). She does not believe herself to be mad but was once institutionalized by her husband for her non-conformist behavior and was released only on condition of giving up custody of Diane. Diane's father brought her up to idealize conformity and emotional control, and she fears that letting her feelings out will show that she is insane. When she begins to see the past as well, she fears that she is losing her mind.

Adding to the difficulties is the ghost of a Mayan priestess, one of the last servants of the Moon Goddess who was displaced by the Toltec invaders' religion. Able to communicate with Elizabeth, she urges her to make sacrifices that will restore the goddess.

One of the themes I found most interesting in this book was the contrast between Elizabeth's respect for ancient cultures and extreme cultural relativism and the reality of practices as they affect individual lives. The story is partly set in the Bay Area of the 1980s, which is when and where I grew up, and Elizabeth's defense of Mayan cultic practices such as human sacrifice as being fine because "that was their culture" is precisely what I was taught in school and what most of my peers seemed to profess. Yet when the Mayan priestess wants to enact her cultural beliefs by sacrificing those that Elizabeth cares about, does she respectfully cooperate? Of course not.

When I used to bother arguing about this issue with other San Franciscans, most of them fell back on the position that whatever a culture practiced was right for members of that culture as long as they didn't hurt anyone. I think this is a cop-out. First of all, not hurting others is as much of an imposed moral absolute as any other moral dictum. Plenty of cultures don't think it is wrong to hurt other groups with different religions, races, practices, etc. Secondly, this denies the volition of individuals to reject a culture or moral system that they are born into. I cannot reconcile this with feminism. Many cultures think it is all right -- in some cases even a positive moral good -- for a man to beat his wife, for women to be denied equal rights, for unwanted female children to be killed or sold. Moral relativism is a luxury for those born into cultures which protect their rights and do not allow them to be victimized.

[Nicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Falling Woman is a slowish, atmospheric read which got hooks into me and wouldn’t let go. I love the setting — the archaeological dig, the tensions of the excavation team, even the awkwardness between the long estranged mother and daughter… It feels like the kind of site it is: laden with history, meaning, and maybe even ghosts. It’s hard to describe, and to do so would be a disservice if you want to read the book, I think; the whole point is the slow unwinding, the building of tension and uncanniness, even threat.

What’s also awesome is that this is a book populated with women — not all female characters, but still, a good proportion. And they talk to each other (about things other than men!), and work and get dirty and bitten by bugs and tired till they ache. They like or dislike each other, find it difficult to relate, enjoy one another’s company or avoid it, and it feels real. No tokenism here (though perhaps a bit of racial stereotyping around the boyfriends the younger women pick up during their time off), and no false utopia either. Things are complicated, sometimes things aren’t even solved, and Murphy handles it well.

Definitely don’t read introductions or summaries, for this one. Give it time to reveal itself to you — I think you’ll be glad if you do.

Originally posted here.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel, which won the Nebula Award in 1988, has a lot of promise that never quite coheres into a satisfying whole. Among its strengths is an impeccably-crafted sense of place; I was always vividly immersed in every locale, especially the archeological dig of Mayan ruins at which most of the action occurs. Another is a clear-eyed, intimate portrait of two women — a reluctant mother and her long-ago-abandoned daughter — as they navigate their way past their own inner demons and the gaps that keep them from understanding and connecting to one another.

However, the disparate elements of the narrative — which also flirts with an undercooked supernatural subplot that winds up feeling both a bit too derivative and a bit too murkily imagined — ultimately remain at too much of a remove from one another, and therefore kept me from ever really connecting to the themes that Murphy is working very hard to coalesce.

[Mareike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this mother-daughter story, but somehow I never quite connected with it emotionally.
I liked the structure and the changing POVs, but the story itself left me wanting more.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this one because it won a Nebula Prize. But, as I am finding with the Nebula, I don't really agree that this is the best of sci-fi in 1986, a year that Bujold published three (!) Vorkosigan novels including one one her best, The Warrior's Apprentice, Asimov's fifth Foundation novel, Foundation and Earth, and Stanislaw Lem's excellent Fiasco.

Murphy's novel is entirely too predictable with one-dimensional characters that are just not all that interesting, a hokey hallucinatory plot that did not suspend my disbelief, and awkward dialogs. The one thing that saves this from a lower rating is the information about the history of the Mayans that I did find interesting. It was in some ways similar to Song of Kali without evoking the depth of horror or amazement that that book does.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Look alive
See these bones
What you are now
We were once
And just like we are
You'll be dust...
—Nada Surf, "See These Bones," from the album Lucky (2008)

I must've first read The Falling Woman shortly after it came out, more than thirty years ago—but I'm afraid I didn't remember much about it when I picked up this handsome trade paperback reissue from Open Road. That's entirely my fault; upon this rereading, I found myself thoroughly amazed by Pat Murphy's Nebula Award-winning novel, and how adroitly she managed to upend genre conventions while weaving such a coherent and compelling story.

To begin with, there's Murphy's protagonist. Elizabeth Butler calls herself "old"—though these days she doesn't seem so old to me; she's only fifty-one.

My hands tell more of my history than my face. They are tanned and wrinkled and I can trace the paths of veins along their backs. The nails are short and hard, like the claws of some digging animal, and the wrists are marked with vertical white scars, a permanent record of my attempt to escape my former husband and the world in the most drastic way possible.
—p.9

Butler is, it seems to me, the sort of protagonist we need more of in SF—she's worldly and wise, talented and experienced and strong, but she's by no means flawless, and she got where she is by going through a lot of pain, not by finding any "magic plot token."

Even so, there's plenty of magic afoot in The Falling Woman. Elizabeth is a skilled archaeologist, but she also has an edge when it comes to knowing where to dig: she sees the bygone people whose buried traces she's seeking, and (if her contemporaries will just keep quiet!) she can hear them, too. She has to be very careful about sharing the information she gets from this extraordinary channel, of course, but no one can argue with her success in the field.

As The Falling Woman commences, Elizabeth is on a dig in the Yucatán, working alongside colleagues and students from the University of New Mexico and a crew of laborers led by the experienced local worker Salvador, unearthing part of the ancient Mayan city of Dzibilchaltún. It is sweaty, dusty field work, just the kind she loves—and when the crew get done for the day, they can swim in the nearby cenote called Xlacah, the deep stone well from which the Mayans drew their water.

Elizabeth is surrounded by her customary visions of living history...

The sun was setting. The hollow wailing of conch shell trumpets blown by Mayan priests rose over the trilling of the crickets and echoed across the plaza. I alone listened to the sweet mournful sound—neither Tony nor Salvador could hear the echoes of the past.
—p.11

But something is different about this expedition. Elizabeth's shadows seem more insistent in Dzibilchaltún, more immediate... more aware of her.

I wondered, in the lily-scented night, if the rules were changing.
—p.18

So much of this book isn't SF at all, though.

I was an only child. My father was a dour straight-backed man who earned his living as a plumber and believed in a dour straight-backed Christian God. He did not believe that women needed a college education. He disapproved of my passion for collecting Indian arrowheads, stone tools, and fragments of pots. My mother, like the female birds of many species, had developed a drab protective coloration that let her blend into the background, invisible as long as she remained silent.
—p.69

Elizabeth Butler was, and is, unable to be drab.

Pat Murphy isn't drab, either. While the prose in The Falling Woman is always clear and never overly flowery, it's also full of poetry and sly humor, sometimes in unexpected places—amid a discussion of the Mayan calendar, for example:

Somewhere across the square a guitarist played a ballad, doubtlessly for lovers who would rather have been left in peace.
—p.151

Or when talking about the city of (fallen? falling?) angels...

I dreamed of Los Angeles, the tacky battered crackerbox of a city that I left so long ago.
—p.158

Murphy's novel felt fresh and timeless to me—looking back over millennia, the gap between the 1980s and today doesn't seem quite so vast. A few details in The Falling Woman do seem dated, though—one of Elizabeth's favorite tools is a portable typewriter, which can be heard clacking through the night from her tent—and the novel is definitely culturally bound to a Norteamericano's perspective. These archaeologists (and archaeologists-to-be) are very much outsiders, swooping in to dig up someone else's past—and this is even more apparent when they take a break, venturing into the city of Mérida for hot showers, shopping and possible companionship, playing typical tourists rather than scientists on a mission.

On the other hand, the way The Falling Woman focuses on and centers women was enormously refreshing (and a reminder of how much hasn't changed). Elizabeth Butler is Murphy's protagonist, so of course we see things through her eyes—but Butler's daughter Diane and her colleague Barbara are also centered in this narrative. The guys are around, of course, like Elizabeth's old friend Tony, and Salvador, and Marcos and Emilio in Mérida, but they come across as distinctly secondary.

I can see this book being made into a great movie, actually—it's not all potsherds and trowels; there's also sex and violence (well, historical human sacrifice, anyway) and tons of dramatic tension, spiraling up to an intense climax—but I think any good film version would have to preserve this essential female perspective.


Unearthing this one (well, picking it off the shelf) felt as if I'd made an amazing archaeological find myself. The Falling Woman is a brilliant and underrated work that well deserves its new showcase.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps I'm just optimistic, but I expected more from an award winning book. Then again, maybe I should have known better; one of the comments on the back of the book was that the writing is "generally above average". If that's the best thing you can find to put on a book cover, watch out.

I don't have a lot of bad things to say about the book. But neither do I have a lot of good things to say about it. The characters were strong, but I just didn't quite care about them. The details of an archaeological dig were interesting, but not fully believable or compelling [full disclosure; I'm an archaeology junkie who reads archaeology periodicals regularly]. The main character's psychological issues were well-drawn, but difficult to believe in, or sympathize with. The prose includes descriptions of settings that evoke mental images, but which fail to fully evoke emotions of awe, or satisfaction, or loneliness, or danger that would transform those images into art.

It never descends to the depths of bad writing, but it never climbs to the level of great writing, either. It floats along in that space where you have to keep reading because the story has 'potential', but never fully realizes the potential and so, is ultimately disappointing.

I keep coming back to that comment about the "generally above average" writing. That comment fits; it is generally, but not consistently, above average. And that's not good enough; my expectations for winners of "big" awards run high. In the end, all I could think of was that the competition for Nebulas must have been pretty weak in 1986.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remember almost nothing about this book, which I presumably read because it won the Nebula for Best Novel in 1987. Jogging my memory, I see Mara's short, cogent 2-star review:
"I bought this due to its high number of good reviews, but found it a complete snooze-fest. Essentially its 272 pages of gorgeous prose about 2 people I could not bring myself to care about in the slightest. ..." https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Looking at my old booklog and her list of books published, my luck with Pat Murphy's books over the years has been, well, spotty at best. Date read for this one is just a guess.

[Anthony Buck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. It had several plot strands, each of which I really enjoyed and was then delighted when they dovetailed beautifully at the end. The characterisations are wonderful and the sense of time and place is impeccable. Highly recommend

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

When one of the local workers on a Yucatan archeological site breaks his ankle, the local hospital fixes him up but his mother, the cook for the archeological team, insists that the local curandera be brought in to check him out as well. This old woman also wants to meet Elizabeth Butler, the middle-aged and well-known leader of the team. She identifies Butler as a witch.

Butler is not bothered by this opinion. She can even appreciate it. All her life she has lived with shadows of the past inhabiting her world. This has made her an excellent archeologist, although on this dig for the first time one of these "shadows" has begun to speak to her. But Butler knows that a witch has power, which is better than being crazy, a diagnosis that removes your power and puts you under the power of others. She has been considered crazy in her life as well. Years before, when she saw no way out of a marriage that was suffocating her, she slit her wrists. This suicide attempt got her institutionalized. When she got out, she abandoned her husband and small daughter, went back to school, and began the life she has now.

The unannounced arrival of Diane Butler, the daughter she abandoned twenty years before, initiates the action of Falling Woman. Diane's father has died and her married lover has called an end to their affair. She has come to Dzibilchaltun to reconnect with her mother, for reasons she cannot clearly articulate even to herself. She finds an awkward place among the graduate students and other faculty who work the site, and she too begins to see shadows of the past.

There are a few ways out of the fantastic elements of the plot for readers resistant to the reality of what Diane and Elizabeth experience. Bad luck can be just that and have nothing to do with the fact that a particular day is under the sign of the jaguar in his night aspect. Diane's earliest visions come after smoking some of the very good local weed. Elizabeth Butler has developed a serious fever with the oncoming of the rains and she could also be crazy. She admits as much and insanity could be genetic. But Murphy's story is not a game with the reader over what really happens.

Elizabeth Butler is in communication with a priestess of the moon goddess who survived a sacrificial plunge into the deep cenote at Chichen Itza 900 years ago. This vision has a message, or more like an demand, to pass on to Elizabeth about blood sacrifice. Elizabeth understands the agony of this being, but should her allegiance be to the living or the dead? Murphy uses this question to build a suspenseful story that is also a realistic depiction of the back-breaking work of archeology and the experience of young Americans in Mexico in the 1980's.

[Lis Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Butler is an archaeologist working a dig at a Mayan site in the Yucatan. In her mid-fifties now, she has a painful personal history of a failed marriage, a failed suicide attempt, and lost custody of and limited contact with her daughter, Diane.

Diane Butler has lost her father, her boyfriend, and her job over the course of a couple of weeks, and for reasons she doesn't herself entirely understand, seeks out her famous and long-absent mother.

Diane has been having disturbing dreams, in which she is falling from a great height into a dark void.

Barbara has always seen shadows of the past, watched the long-dead inhabitants of the sites she studies going about their daily lives. It has given her a reputation for remarkably accurate and valuable hunches, but also a reputation for being very eccentric. Now one of the shadows, a priestess of the Mayan moon goddess from just before the disappearance of Maya civilization, has started speaking to her.

I knew when I began reading that I was taking up a very well-regarded but older novel, not just set but written in the mid-eighties, a time with in some respects a very different sensibility. Especially given its then-contemporary setting, I had some reservations, thinking that it might come off as a period piece. It didn't.

The writing drew me in and built a Yucatan that, whether real or not, felt real as I was reading it. The heat, the powerful sun, and the buried, ancient city all seemed palpable. The core of the novel, the relationship between Elizabeth and Diane, and the slowly revealed agenda of the Mayan priestess, is rich and intricate and beautifully developed.

I really could not put this one down. Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/668913.html[return][return]This is a very good book, one of those rare but welcome moments when the Nebula process picked up on a real gem of a novel that had been overlooked elsewhere, even though it is only barely a genre novel, if anything more of a ghost story than sf or fantasy. The plot concerns an estranged mother and daughter, the former a famous archaeologist working on a Mayan site in the Yucatan, the latter escaping from a set of bad relationships to track down her mother, and the mother's ability to see the ghosts of the past (which has incidentally helped her get lucky with spectacular finds during her career). The writing alternates between first-person POV's of the two women. The third character is a Mayan priestess buried on the site who attempts to project her own life experiences onto the modern women. The writing is gripping and convincing, and although several of the layers of significance are pretty explicit, it worked for me. I'm glad it worked for the 1987 Nebula voters too.

[Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pat Murphy saca bastante partido a esta historia de una madre y una hija que cuentan en paralelo su reencuentro en una excavación de Yucatán después de 15 años de separación. En el diálogo entre sus dos narraciones aparecen las presiones y las renuncias a la hora de ser madre, el machismo en entornos académicos, el desgaste psicológico asociado, la escucha y la capacidad para el perdón... de manera en ocasiones demasiado directa (codazo, guiño, guiño). Más sutil se muestra al establecer la relación entre dos madres separadas por 1100 años: la arqueóloga y una sacerdotisa maya enfrentada a unos imperativos culturales casi alienígenas desde nuestra perspectiva. Aunque hay mucho de monstruoso detrás de su cosmovisión, consigue que no parezca un monstruo (o no sólo, o algo más que...) y da pie a una expiación bastante climática. A veces a Murphy se le va la mano con la divulgación, y da pinceladas de novela romántica del montón, pero acierta a pulsar las teclas adecuadas para que el texto funcione.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haunting, honest and personal. I found this book to have powerful human moments with vivid imagery, touching on themes of motherhood, independence, identity and responsibility, to ourselves and to others. The main protagonist is richly drawn, and the author shines when describing her inner emotional landscape and her relationships with those around her. Several times I had to set the book aside to collect my thoughts as I was getting so emotionally wrapped up in her story. The setting and ancient history are similarly treated with well-researched realism (with one glaring passing mistake that only someone who has lived in the place she’s describing will notice), and there were enough details so that I felt like I was fully present in the world without it being overly descriptive. Unfortunately, this same care doesn’t extend to much of the supporting cast and many of the metaphors and similes employed when describing them felt amateur-ish and cheesy, particularly in contrast to the many other, finely-written and immersive passages. Finally, I’m still ruminating on whether or not I would call this a true fantasy novel, as ultimately the ancient Mayan history and ghostly supernatural elements added a lot of flavor to the background, but weren’t necessarily central to the story the author told.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot of self harm in this book. But most of the characters are women and interact with each other pretty realistically. The story isn't complicated, and this is a fast read. Enjoyable, but not life- altering.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Archaeologist Elizabeth Butler has a secret: she can see the shades of people from the past, going about their daily activities. This talent has led to plenty of “lucky hunches” in her career but also to questions about her sanity. Normally she just sees the past scenes playing out in front of her but cannot affect them in any way. But while excavating the Maya city of Dzibilchaltún, she encounters a shade who can speak to her: Zuhuy-kak, a priestess of the Maya moon goddess. The Maya believed that time is cyclic, and Zuhuy-kak sees in Liz a chance to bring certain events in her own life full circle.

At the same time, Liz’s daughter Diane has come to Dzibilchaltún to see her mother, from whom she has been estranged for many years. The two women try warily to build a relationship even as strange occurrences mount up and Liz begins to fear for Diane’s safety. “You will find here only what you bring,” Liz tells us at the beginning of The Falling Woman, and Liz and Diane have brought a complex tangle of love, hatred, fear, and guilt.

Both women keep their emotional distance from the reader, though, for most of the book. This is consistent with the characters’ personalities and histories, and this reserve is skillfully evoked in Pat Murphy’s prose. Sentences are often clipped, and until late in the novel there’s little internal monologue about emotions. Instead the narration focuses on gestures, dialogue, and the external sights that the women see — at least until emotion breaks through the metaphorical dam at the intense climax.

The Falling Woman is an insightful novel about mother/daughter relationships and about culturally relative definitions of sanity. Another issue, that of conquest or colonialism, is not explicitly discussed yet is ever-present. The conquest of the Maya by the Toltecs loomed large in Zuhuy-kak’s life, and in the present day, it’s hard to miss that the Maya still live in the area and that Maya laborers are doing most of the unsung physical work at Dzibilchaltún.

The ending is satisfactory, if slightly open-ended, and through my own lenses I can’t help but see it as perfectly fitting. The ending Murphy wrote, to me, is the resolution of the mistake Zuhuy-kak really made as opposed to the mistake she thinks she made.

As I write this, it’s 2011 and there’s a great deal of buzz about the Maya, due to the persistent legend that the Maya calendar predicts the end of the world in 2012. In fact, when I walked into my workplace cafeteria to read some of The Falling Woman during lunch, a television was playing a History Channel special about the Maya. (I couldn’t hear a word of it, but it provided some stunning visuals to go with my reading!) In the spirit of everything coming around again, perhaps now is a good time to rediscover this thought-provoking book.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can also find my review of The Falling Woman on my book blog

I very strongly recommend reading this book without reading the blurb on the back cover (or the introduction), or even the summary on Goodreads. They give more of the direction of the plot away than they should.

Elizabeth is an archaeologist on a dig in Central America. She can glimpse the past, especially at dusk and dawn. One day, one of the people she sees looks at her, and starts to talk to her...

Diane is Elizabeth's daughter, joining her mother on the dig after her father / Elizabeth's ex-husband dies. Diane hasn't seen her mother since childhood, and isn't sure what she has gone out to find.

The book tells the story in chapters alternating between the two viewpoints. It starts out intriguing, building up a world and characters carefully, one step at a time. Gradually, it gains tension, a sense of the uncanny, a foreboding feel...

This is a rare novel: it is speculative fiction where most of the characters are women. Not just women, but realistic, credible women, complex, competent, sometimes confused or confusing, sometimes sweaty and smelly, sometimes unkind and uncommunicative and flawed. There are male characters in the novel too, also convincing and authentic, but at its heart, the plot is driven by a triangle of female characters.

The world-building is superb, and the cultural differences between Americans, local present day residents, urban and rural people, older and younger people, and the past native tribal characters, all these cultures are drawn superbly and convincingly and with a deft, subtle hand. This novel is set in a rich world, where each character, even if only appearing in a single scene, has a reality of his/her own, with a sense of a full life and their own concerns.

Combine the rich world building with detailed, convincing and compelling characters, and set them in a plot that gradually gears up tension, and you are in for a literary treat. This novel won a Nebula Award - it deserves every award it could feasibly win. It's a masterpiece.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Each culture defines its idiosyncrasies and then forgets it has done so.”

Maybe 4.5 stars. An exceptionally fine story which defies neat genre assignment. It won a Nebula Award (1988), so I feel somewhat safe calling it fantasy, but this is a great, thought-provoking tale for any reader.

“One frightens oneself; it is not the shadow that frightens us.”

Published in 1986, it argues against the proposition that women didn’t write or weren’t recognized for writing first-class fantasy and science fiction. In fact, all the major characters of this tale are women. The men seem included merely for verisimilitude.

“Archeologists are anthropologists who don’t like people.”

Much good information about the ancient Mayans and the field of archeology, without the clumsy data dumps so intrusive in so many novels. It also explores how mothers and daughters have extra power to drive each other crazy and/or help each other out of it. Good job.

“Many people we call insane are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Quibble: The paragraphing is so awkward that the reader must often stop to puzzle out who is acting or speaking the actor often changes midway through paragraphs.

“The dead teach us things.”

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liz is an archaeologist. Due to unusual circumstances, she left her daughter, Diane, and divorced her husband approximately fifteen years prior. Now Diane wants answers regarding the past and her own unusual circumstances. Who knows, maybe tracking her mother down on an archaeological dig may be good for both of them?

A vividly descriptive narrative with mulit-laeveled mysteries winds throughout while characters search for meaning and for who they are individually and together.

Characters are diverse, authentic, flawed, and intriguing.

Overall, an intriguing read.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was soooo boring! And it could’ve been so exciting! That's annoying enough. But what really grated my nerves was the profound and harmful disconnect between the content of the book and the book at a meta level.

⚠️ Let’s talk about the framing:

The smaller beef: Genre-wise, this isn’t science fiction. It’s fantasy. Time travel ≠ science fiction. Peering into the past or seeing shades is not necessarily science fiction. Just because it won a Nebula doesn’t mean it's science fiction.

The elephant in the room: The synopsis states that the main character Elizabeth "abandoned her husband and daughter years ago to pursue her career." This is so incredibly sexist and wrong-headed that I almost don't have the words to express what vile feelings this sets off in me. The fact is, Elizabeth fled an abusive marriage and was forced to give up custody of her daughter if she didn’t want her emotionally and financially abusive husband to commit her to a psych ward. She periodically tried to re-establish a relationship with her daughter by attempting to get into the good graces of her ex-husband, who, in being fickle and controlling, would dangle possibilities and just as soon snatch them back. How is that "abandonment"? Did the writer of this synopsis simply resort to the cheap thrill of a "bad mother" narrative, however misrepresented? Even if the lead character had "ran off" to live out a career of her dreams, how often do male characters do the same damn thing without their decision being framed this way? Men do things. Men make sacrifices for their career. Men are the heroes of their own story. Men can be bad partners and bad fathers with minimal and often no judgment or repercussions. But not women! Heaven forbid!

Think about it. And whoever wrote that synopsis can [insert your favourite angry expletive] off. Or, even better, correct it.

📖 On to the book itself:

Almost nothing happens, except in fits and bursts near the end. I’m left wondering what the point was. As much as I appreciated the glimpses into Mayan culture from a woman’s perspective, it felt more like a storified encyclopedia entry than a story in its own right.

Also, I know this is a mark of the time during which the novel was written (specifically, 35 years ago), but it’s filled with ageist and sexist commentary. Elizabeth, at 51, is too old to do anything, including run, even though she’s roughing it in the jungle on the regular. Her daughter, Diane, has a rapey rendezvous with a romantic interest whose advances she's repeatedly declined—eventually she relents, even though she's not interested and he's already touched her intimately without her permission. Diane reflects on this experience with a combination of unease and apathy. The other women characters frame it as "a game" and "vying for respect" with the men, but these days we recognize this behaviour as a facet of rape culture—more gag-inducing than sexy.

That said, Elizabeth and her daughter Diane were women characters ahead of their time: "I led an isolated life, having little in common with the women in my boardinghouse. I was uninterested in mixers, boyfriends, and football games, and far too interested in science classes and books." Here here, sister. Elizabeth just wanted something different, something beyond the narrow confines of her gender. And she was roundly penalized for it, including in the damned synopsis of this very book.

Speaking of which, let me provide a bit more detail through select quotes (my emphasis in bold) so that you can understand just how perverse the synopsis is:

"Metaphor is reality once removed. I said that [my ex-husband] Robert wanted to kill me. Really, he wanted me to be quiet and compliant, as good as dead. He was not evil, but he did not understand what I needed to live. He wanted me to be dead to the world."

"'... I think that a great many people we call insane are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.' I shrugged. 'I opposed societal norms, so I was crazy by Robert's definition. ...'"

"'... Finally, [Robert] said we could divorce, but only if I would grant him custody of [Diane]. I had to agree that I would never try to see you without his permission. I wouldn't try to be your mother. I think that he was seeing someone else at the time and he wanted me out of the way. I had to be free of him, so I promised.' I hated the apologetic tone that crept into my voice. I shrugged lightly. 'He kept his part of it. He let me out.'"

"'... I came when Robert wanted me to. On his terms. At one point, I think he was lonely and wanted me back. When I told him that I wasn't interested, he cut off my visiting privileges.' I shrugged and smiled a small tight smile. 'He wasn't cruel about it. He sent me pictures of you.'"

That's pretty damned clear to me, but some a-hole interpreted a traumatized and powerless woman's actions as "abandonment" of her family. Shame on you.

Okay, moving on ... albeit with bile in my throat. I also appreciated the burning criticism of white supremacist patriarchy, especially for the times:

"At a party given by one of Robert's colleagues, an arrogant man had been talking about the limitations of what he called the 'primitive' mind. He seemed to regard all nonwhite races as primitive. I argued with him for a while, and ended up calling him a stupid bigoted fool. Word of this had finally filtered back to Robert. 'Couldn't you have used a little tact?' he asked. 'You want me to kowtow to that idiot?' 'I want you to use a little sense. That idiot is head of surgery and he has a lot of pull at the hospital,' Robert said. 'You should know better. You used to know better. ... What's wrong with you these days? ... Why are you always so touchy?'"

A white woman stands up to white supremacy and the patriarchy bats her down. She cows. And this is how white supremacy and patriarchy work together, strange and insidious bedfellows.

The writing was fine. The problem was the empty plot that slithered along at a snail’s pace. So much missed opportunity.

"'I know what you want,' Zuhuy-kak said softly. 'I can tell you. You want power. ...'"

What a story that would have been.

[Gabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I thought I would be annoyed at how little actual mystic part there is, but bit by bit the slow and thoughtful story about the lives of two women who are not entirely there where they belong got under my skin.
Pat Murphy managed to skillfully portrait a woman who is different, who doesn't bow to conventional norms and socially acceptable niceties and as a result is stamped crazy by her environment. She ran away from her daughter 15 years ago and burried herself in archaeological work. A profession often as withdrawn and slow paced as her character. I loved how the exterior mirrored the interior here.
When she finally meets her daughter again she realizes that there are still some bonds that hold no matter how rigorously she thought them severed.

The mystical Mayan part is no plot in itself, but serves as catalyst for the development of mother and daughter. At first I wasn't sure I liked that, since I was expecting some fantasy-storyline. But more and more I got econvinced that it was just right the way it was.

I loved the book and was moved by the internal battles of the two main characters. A thoughtful, deep narration. And a wonderful understanding of a soul outside the usual social norms.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an electronic copy of this from the publisher via NetGalley.

Pat Murphy's name and writing were only familiar to me from the nonfiction articles that she coauthors for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Always interesting and well written, I was excited for the opportunity to read some of her fiction, this one a Nebula award winner.

Structured as alternating chapters between the points of view of Elizabeth, a respected archeologist leading an expedition studying Mayan ruins, and her estranged daughter Diane, the book explores dichotomies that exist within us all and how these influence both the individual and relationships. A certain conflicting contrast is present throughout "The Falling Woman" at al levels. There is the realism/fantastic divide in its genre: it could arguably be either a fantasy novel, or firmly grounded in reality. Elizabeth is haunted by her past, and by visions of ghosts, such as the Mayans who continue to wander the ruins and talk to her, sharing their own secrets, and their own world views. Unsure if she is crazy, or merely 'gifted', Elizabeth, and the reader are forced to consider whether it matters, or whether the two possible extremes can exist comfortably side by side.

The novel also delves into cultural divides, of being Western or Mayan, from the United States or a Mexican, Christian or 'pagan'. How are these each different, and how might they be surprisingly similar? However most prevalently, the book explores the dichotomies of male/female and mother/daughter. Elizabeth's eccentricities and uncertain sanity are tied to emotional pains she has dealt with in her life to varying success. She has cut herself and has attempted suicide. These and other darkness led her to separation from her husband, and abandonment of her daughter. Unable to conform to the accepted societal maternal position, and female submissive position, Elizabeth goes out on her own, to deal with her emotional darkness, gain a college education, and try to find a passion for something in life. Diane as a result, views her mother as a mystery, but with love and devotion despite her abandonment, Diane seeks Elizabeth out, and together begin to evoke certain maternal aspects in each of them, and deeper connections.

The emotional frailty of Elizabeth, relatively frowned upon by traditional American society is contrasted nicely with the maternal cultures of the Mayan, with their infant sacrifices. Similarly it is contrasted with the traditional, and largely accepted, male answer to addressing emotional pain: drunkenness. Filled with these sorts of relationship complexities and profound insight in feminist and other cultural matters, "The Falling Woman" is simply a brilliant novel. The writing is simple and straight-forward, but in that way it is delicate and poignant, precise, without ever being over-bearing or too frenetic. Although marketed as SciFi/Fantasy, this is far closer to a literary novel, and fans wanting hard genre adventure may be disappointed with what is here. But those open to exploring dichotomies of culture and characters will find this richly rewarding. Open Road Media, who is publishing this in ebook format, is putting out other works by Murphy as well, and I am definitely putting those on my list to pick up.

[Heather A · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a copy from Netgalley.

I had a nice email from a lady in the digital marketing department for Open Road Media offering an invitation to review the title via Netgalley. The novel sounded interesting, and I usually like things with Mayan history. I find the Maya rather fascinating. And the way this novel was described in the email I got it really did sound like something I would enjoy.

However, I just did not like this book much at all, and after 40% I'm just not interested in reading any more. I tried skimming through, but really just didn't find much to keep me reading.

So I'm DNFing. I didn't like the characters much, the main character, an older lady archaeologist came across as obnoxious and some what full of herself. I liked her adult daughter Diane a little better. Elizabeth sees ghosts on her digs, which was mildly interesting. The dig site was a little more interesting and the people working there. But a lot of the Mayan information filtered through the novel feels more like I'm reading a text book or report rather than a novel. The plot was very very slow and not much seems to be happening other than people working at an archaeological site. Even with the appearance of Mayan ghosts/spirits I'm just frankly not that interested.

Thank you to Netgalley and Open Road Media for your invitation, but this book was not my taste at all.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this book as it had a marvellous write up by someone in my SF and Fantasy group, a woman archaeologist that can see the people of the past, sounded fabulous. Set in South America on an archaeological dig for the most part it had great promise, then, nothing really happens. Yes there is a haunting by a mad ghost but most of the book is about an angst ridden mother/daughter relationship, some sexual and emotional encounters with the locals and between the students on site and that is about it really. It was an OK, easy read and has reignited my interest in the archaeology of Latin America but it is not the page burner I had expected.

[Mara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this due to its high number of good reviews, but found it a complete snooze-fest. Essentially its 272 pages of gorgeous prose about 2 people I could not bring myself to care about in the slightest. Yet another example of classic self-absorption being mistaken for emotional drama.

I suspect that I would have liked it more had it not been erroneously classified as Fantasy. It's not, no matter how many ghosts wander around.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes you gotta read from a different era, no? I picked this up for $2 in a used bookstore, mostly because I liked the concept of an SFF book with a setting within Mayan archaeology. It also won the Nebula for Best Novel in 1987, so I thought I'd see what the fuss was about.

"The fuss," such as it is, probably has a lot to do with the fact that this book mashes up a lot of different genres - women's fiction, ghost story, historical fiction - with a soupçon of timey-wimey goodness that has the main character, an early-50s archaeologist named Liz, in conversation with/haunted by a Mayan priestess. Who may or may not want her to sacrifice her adult daughter, Diane, who's joined them on a dig at Dzibilchaltún (a real place in Yucatan, Mexico).

That is a lot of story elements that it is not common to see, not even today, really. An older woman protagonist. One who suffers mental illness / has special powers (the narrative is coy about defining it either way). One who wanted to pursue a professional career rather than parenthood, way before that was a done thing. One who has to reconcile with her estranged daughter when they're both adults.

Tbh, I'm not sure all of the story elements came together flawlessly, but this book is certainly successful in creating a VIBE. The sense of place in Yucatan that Murphy creates with her writing is *chef's kiss*. The characters all seem very real. The interweaving of Mayan history and calendar info is well done. And there's a sucker punch of a plot moment towards the end of the book that caught me right in the feels. It still stings to think about it, but in a good-writing kind of way.

I have to say I kept tripping out on the timeline though. This book was published in 1986, and we are meant to assume it's contemporary, so that means Liz, a 51 year old woman, was born in 1935. She had her daughter Diane at 21, so in 1956. Diane's childhood and many of the past experiences that Liz and Diane reflect on all happened in the 1960s. I had to keep reminding myself of these eras as I was reading to properly put the events in historical context!

Overall, I enjoyed this book and will likely read more of Pat Murphy's stuff.

[Claudia Putnam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really okay by today's standards. Came out in 1986 when we hadn't stopped writing about cultures we're not part of. So I'll probably get in trouble for liking this, which I did, minus some issues, like WHY is a woman of 51 so old? I mean, wrinkled, frail, unable to run far... were women in the 80s older then? I mean, I'm 56 and still climb 2500 feet in the backcountry to ski untracked mountains.

The thing is, what if you DO have a strongly developed intuitive sense of what went on in certain places? What if sometimes you can see and hear? What if your take, with these skills, is different from the descendents of the natives, who after all forgot how to read their glyphs (think of Egypt or Greece if you don't want to think of Mesoamerica)? Are you not allowed to be an expert (even though other, more conventional means--the archaeologist here is both) on another culture? Is a genetic but not cultural descendent more qualified?

Anyway. I do see and hear things in those contexts. I'm crazy, but not hallucinatory/delusional crazy. So I enjoyed the book in spite of some of its cultural no-nos.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A re-read. But it has been a very long time. This was almost certainly the first book by this author that I read. I read much of what she had written afterwards, some of which I liked quite a bit. But this was a Nebula Award winner - and especially back that I'm sure it was about what I expected - just a little bit off - a bit different then what others were writing.

Is it fantasy? Maybe some. Mental illness? Wish fulfillment? It's hard to say. I didn't love this and I wasn't completely sucked into it. But it was interesting and well written. The characters were all basically real, just none of them were all that compelling.

And I kept on waiting for something in particular to happen. And probably I felt that way the first time too. 3.5 of 5

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully written modern/historical fantasy based on Mayan mythology. One of the best I've read in recent years.

[Steve Baskauf · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really think this was Nebula Award material. The setting and Mayan cultural stuff was interesting, but the plot was pretty weak (troubled women struggling to understand themselves and their relationships).

In some ways this story reminds me of Among Others where you are wondering whether the main character is mentally ill/hallucinating or whether she actually has magical abilities. I guess that is one of the main points of the book, but it is also a bit disturbing because the author tries to rationalize it as normal in another (Mayan) culture, along with other things like suicide and self mutilation. Also disturbing was lots of alcohol abuse, incessant smoking, child neglect, etc. Would not really recommend unless you are really interested in Mayan culture.