What Falls Away by Karin Anderson is a novel of family, art, and the raw process of healing. Cassandra Soelberg, pregnant at seventeen, was cast out by Mormon patriarchs of her community. Returning to her rural Utah hometown after forty years to care for her senile mother, she meets a young man with an uncanny resemblance to the father of her never-known child. Drawn back into traumatic scenes of young adulthood, she must reconcile with her past in the fiercely beautiful landscapes that shaped her.

"A powerful novel that will resonate with anyone who has returned to a place they no longer recognize as home."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS
 
"Sharp, poetic prose... her story commands attention."
— FOREWORD REVIEWS

“The red sandstone and gnarled juniper landscapes of southern Utah have shaped unforgettable voices: Terry Tempest Willams. Edward Abbey. Now comes Karin Anderson, who in What Falls Away gives us a narrator named Cassandra, who speaks towards the truths of exiles coming home. Sinewy, muscular, and determined, as hard on herself as she is on those around her, Cassandra brings us a vision of what family and redemption can and should look like, if we get real, as real as the desert demands that we be. Outstanding.”
—JOANNA BROOKS, author of Book of Mormon Girl

“Karin Anderson’s new novel, What Falls Away, could be described as a family saga and I would suggest, in some important ways, it’s every family’s saga. The impulse to lie and dissemble in the service of protecting reputations seems to always do the opposite and who among us can cast the first or any stone anyway? As we get to know Cassandra (our truth teller) and through her the rest of the Soelberg clan, we can see how much more alike we are than different. I loved this story, not just because it’s close to home for me but because I think it’s close to home for so many young women.”
—ANNE HOLMAN, The King’s English Bookshop

About the author:
Karin Anderson is a gardener, writer, mother, wanderer, and heretic, as well as the author of Before Us Like a Land of Dreams. Her work has appeared in Dialogue, Quarter After Eight, Western Humanities Review, Sunstone, Saranac Review, American Literary Review, and Fiddleback. A former professor of English at Utah Valley University, she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and holds degrees from Utah State University, Brigham Young University, and the University of Utah. She hails from the Great Basin.