The Falling Woman

Thought-provoking and heartrending, The Falling Woman resonates long after the book has closed and is a collection to read again and again.

Shaena Lambert’s remarkable debut short story collection, part of our new Vintage Tales series, examines the universal themes of love, loss and healing. All ten stories, whether they are set in the dry, sage-covered hills of the Okanagan or on the serenely polluted shores of Lake Ontario, are linked thematically by an archetypal icon: the falling woman. She rushes through the air upside down, transformed by what she has seen, or is about to recognize. Never quite fallen — always in transition — she insists on plunging into the forbidden: marching down Main Street topless; seducing married men; exploring the shadowy losses that predate her birth but still manage to stamp her being.

Shaena Lambert’s perceptive eye and flair for evocative and sensual prose bring the under-surface of relationships — between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives — to brilliant light.