Les Chutes

The Falls is a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, originally published in 2004 by the Ecco Press, and winner of the 2005 Prix Femina Etranger. It tells the story of Ariah, a woman whose husband threw himself over Niagara Falls on their honeymoon. The rest of the book is the story of her life afterward and family, and how she finds love, then loses it when Ariah's new husband becomes engrossed in his work on what was to become the Love Canal case. The novel spans the time between 1950, before environmental issues gained prominence, and 1978, when these issues became the object of nationwide interest and concern. The author makes use of information about the Love Canal scandal and uses information provided by the two books by Lois Marie Gibbs, Love Canal: My Story, and Love Canal: The Story Continues.