Elizabeth Butler is an archaeologist who is shunned by her colleagues, but successful both in the field and as an author. What no-one else knows is that her excavations and popular books are made possible by a unique gift. When she is in the proximity of dig sites in Mexico, she can see Mayan people from the distant past, going about their business as they did a thousand years earlier. This ability to look into the past belongs to Elizabeth alone - or so she thinks.
Published in 1986, The Falling Woman is the second novel by Washington-born American author Pat Murphy. It would go on to win the 1987 Nebula Award for Best Novel, beating out books by authors including Greg Bear, Gene Wolfe, and David Brin. A unique contemporary fantasy, it is set in the archaeological site of Dzibilchaltún in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, and the nearby city of Mérida. Also an entry in Gollancz’s Fantasy Masterworks line, it deals powerfully with themes of belief, family, femininity, and mental illness.
The dominant presence in The Falling Woman is the difficult, antisocial, but brilliant archaeologist Elizabeth Butler. She is a veteran of many digs in Mexico, where her unique ability has secretly contributed to a number of important finds. Like a number of literary detective characters, she is more at ease with the dead than the living. The daily lives of long-dead Maya villagers make more sense to her than the petty rivalries and romances of her students and colleagues. Butler is between worlds in more than one sense.
The inciting incident for the novel’s plot is the unexpected arrival of Elizabeth’s estranged daughter Diane. Following a bad breakup in Los Angeles, Diane decides to seek out her mother and flies down to Mérida to see her. She joins the latest dig at the Maya ruins nearby, and makes a number of faltering attempts to re-establish a relationship with her mother. This throws Elizabeth’s world out of joint, and the situation is complicated still further by the repeated appearance of a Mayan priestess with dark predictions for the future. The Falling Woman has a relatively straightforward but highly effective structure. The chapters alternate in focus, with some being told from Elizabeth’s perspective, and some from the viewpoint of Diane. This helps to underscore the difficulties the two women have in understanding each other, and their struggle to forge a new link after many years apart. Occasionally, Murphy includes short passages from Elizabeth’s new book, which are far more fluent and impassioned than her snatches of reluctant conversation with the living.
This is what might be called a “literary fantasy” novel. To a significant extent, the book reads like a mainstream novel because its main emphasis is on the relationship between mother and daughter. Murphy’s tight focus is on human interactions, and the way contemporary people process what they know about the ancient Maya and their culture. To some people on the dig, archaeology is a way to potentially get rich; for others it is a means to avoid the “real” world or simply to pass the time. For Elizabeth, it is her whole world - and the arrival of Diane and the priestess destabilise a delicate balance.
However, the fantasy element is critical to the book. The ability to perceive the dead at the dig site is something which grows into a link between mother and daughter. The dark premonitions and exhortations of the priestess drive events in a way which could threaten the lives of both Elizabeth and Diane. Elizabeth’s interactions with this figure are an insight into the beauty and horror of the Mayan way of life, at least from a contemporary, so-called “civilised” perspective. The priestess has an unsettling experience of womanhood, motherhood, and community which challenges what the characters living in the 1980s think they know. All of this is wonderfully executed by Pat Murphy. The book constantly raises the question of whether Elizabeth’s visions are a genuine paranormal ability or a complex manifestation of her mental illness. The archaeologist's difficult nature and withdrawal from ordinary society are rooted in her traumatic experiences, which include a period in a secure psychiatric facility. Elizabeth comes to decide that in an unsympathetic, male-dominated world, it matters little what causes her visions - if she was to speak of them, she would be considered insane and locked up, regardless of the truth. While the central triangle of women characters are at the core of The Falling Woman, Murphy also includes a number of well-rounded secondary figures. Elizabeth has a true friend in her long standing male colleague, but she does not accept or value his attempts to support her. The current crop of students are captured believably, with their diverse motivations for being in Mexico. It is a testament to Murphy’s vivid depiction of ancient Mayan life that these side-stories can sometimes seem unreal or trivial. Indeed, this is why they are so important to the story, as they underscore how consumed by the past the main characters become.
Pat Murphy deserves to be a better known author, even on the strength of this novel alone. Her depiction of a fraught mother-daughter reunion is believable and moving, and her focus on the Mayan world of bloodshed, faith, and mysticism is just as compelling. Throughout the novel, these two very different worlds collide in narratively engaging ways and the book builds to a powerful and thought-provoking climax.
A world away from the Tolkien-derived predictability of much high fantasy, The Falling Woman marries literary sophistication with genre interest and real emotion. It is a classic of 1980s fantasy, and well deserves its inclusion in the Fantasy Masterworks.
2 Comments
2/2/2025 04:37:36 pm
This was such a good review of a book I remember. I've subscribed to your podcast.
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Weekly blog exploring classic science fiction, with a focus on the 1950s to the 1990s. |