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Product Description
From Amazon
Fall on Your Knees, award-winning actor and playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald's sprawling and powerful first novel, reads like a literary soap opera, but one whose mature themes are far from the pulp and clichés of daytime television. Its episodic rises and falls have the same sort of page-turning, cliff-hanging appeal of that lesser medium. It never drags, never over-burdens the reader, and, most importantly, remains likeable and believable despite the many--and sometimes magical--twists and turns of its tale.
Fall on Your Knees tells the story of several generations of the Piper family of Cape Breton, beginning with the marriage of James Piper, the controlling, emotionally stunted son of Gaelic-speaking Scottish Canadians, and Materia Mahmoud, the 13-year-old daughter of wealthy Lebanese immigrants. Materia's father cuts her off from her family for marrying James, and James in turn forces her to deny both her heritage and her emotions. James, out of a spite even he fails to comprehend, focuses all his attention on Kathleen, his first-born and a musical prodigy. He dotes on her and sends her away to study opera in New York. However, Kathleen's unexpected return from New York, where she has made some discoveries that will ultimately turn her father against her, becomes the centre of an intricately plotted series of tragedies involving each of the Piper sisters. In a startlingly skilful manipulation of prose, MacDonald teases out clues, secrets, and revelations that are both delightful to discover and disturbing to consider. --Jonathan Dewar
From Booklist
A family pays the wages of lust in this memorable first novel, for it is most often lust that leads to unsuitable if not unholy couplings in the Piper family of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, in the early part of this century. Eighteen-year-old piano tuner James Piper is so smitten with 12-year-old Materia Mahmoud that he entices her from her traditional Lebanese family to marry him. Before she's 14 the untutored Materia gives birth to Kathleen, the beautiful and gifted child whom she is unable to love but whom James takes to his heart. There are more daughters: Mercedes, the good girl who becomes the little mother; Other Lily, who dies unbaptized when one day old; Frances, the bad girl who becomes a bawdy entertainer and worse; and Kathleen's daughter, Lily, the saintly crippled girl who will learn the secrets and find resolution and redemption. Actress-playwright MacDonald is a talented storyteller with a crisp yet lilting prose style that captures equally well the atmospheres of World War I trenches and Harlem jazz clubs. Michele Leber
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Even if you want to, you will never forget the Piper family!,
By Serena (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fall On Your Knees (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)
I am having trouble starting this, because I'm still in shock over the vast amount of negative reviews that I have just read. Even if you don't like the storyline or "relate" to the characters, I am shocked that someone could come up with something negative to say because the writing alone is hands down breathtaking. I did not think it was possible for someone to write so magnificently and yet be an unknown name. It is the most amazing debut novel I have ever read of any author. To be honest, the beginning is a little slow. It took me longer than usual to get into it. However, around page 100, I couldn't put it down. I was so intrigued by every single character. It didn't matter if I related to them or not, what mattered was that I sympathized with them and felt that I knew them. I felt as though I had grown up with the Piper children, and for days after finishing I couldn't stop thinking about Lily or Mercedes or Katherine. There is no denying that the family is more than slightly dysfunctional. As dysfunctional as it is, it is still completely realistic. Fall on your knees is a heartbreaking story of one family. For me, as much as I wanted to hate certain characters, such as John, I couldn't because no matter how horrible he could be, you also see how amazing he could be. You LOVE these characters, even if you don't want to. You get angry and sad, but still, through it all, you feel for them, and see why they do what they do. It's been a long time since I have been so touched by the characters in a book. They became more than characters to me. They were my friends. I cried when they cried and I laughed when they laughed. The story is depressing and dark. It is heartbreaking and pretty emotionally draining, to be honest. If you are looking for a light, fun read, then I don't suggest this. But if you want to read a novel that will stay with you, and touch you and influence you, then Fall on your Knees will do this. Like I said earlier, the writing alone will blow you away. MacDonald is a true storyteller. Everything is intertwined in each other and you don't really understand what is going on until you finish the book. For days I kept going back to and rereading parts, putting it all together. I read the first page over and over so many times the number is too high to recall. Fall on your Knees is a great book. I read it over a month ago, and I still find myself thinking about the Pipers. To me, that says a lot. Even if you disagree with the story or find it to depressing, you cannot deny that MacDonald is an amazing writer. Read this book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Fall on Your Knees,
By Sandie Nelson (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fall On Your Knees (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)
One of the darkest and most depressing books I have read. If that's what you're looking for, this one is well written.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Maybe for some, not for most...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Fall On Your Knees (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)
As an employee for [a local book store], the staff and I couldn't figure out what the big deal was about this book. I took it out on a loan, and I am certainly glad I did-- I would not buy this book after reading it. It's horribly redundant, terribly long, and overall confusing and difficult to read. The characters I couldn't care about-- they never touched me that way. Oprah Club books are depressing and full of angst- this novel was no different. Even still, it was hard to get into and in the end, after 2 days of a struggling read, I was glad it was over. It never gave me any lessons on life or an enlightened perspective- all it made me do was fall asleep.
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