book review fall on your knees

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

FALL ON YOUR KNEES

by Ann-Marie MacDonald ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1997

From award-winning Canadian actress and playwright MacDonald comes a full-bodied, ever-rolling debut, the story of a talented Cape Breton family with more than its share of repression and tragedy. As the 19th century ends, young James Piper travels from the Breton hinterland to the civilized port of Sydney seeking his fortune, and in no time at all he acquires a child bride, a house built by his Lebanese father-in-law, and the everlasting enmity of his wife's powerful family. Although the ardor between James and his spouse soon cools, they now have a daughter, Kathleen, who seems destined for great things when her breathtaking voice and beauty begin to captivate all as she enters her teens. But another shadow falls on the family when James finds himself making improper advances to her. Appalled, he patches things up with his wife (two more daughters being the result), goes off to fight in WW I, and sends Kathleen to New York to study voice after he returns. All still isn't well, however, when she comes home pregnant six months later, then dies in childbirth when Mom slices her open to save her daughter's twins. One of them dies anyway, followed two days later by Mom, who commits suicide. James is left with three girls to raise, all of them scarred for life by the crisis: The newborn contracts polio when her aunt Frances, a child herself, tries to baptize her in a nearby creek; Frances is raped by James in his grief at losing Kathleen; the eldest, a witness to the rape, is also the one to find her mother's body. Such awful events, though quickly repressed, bode no good for the family, and ultimately tragedy overtakes them all. A plate piled dangerously high with calamities, perhaps, but the time, place, and people- -especially the children—all ring clear and true, making for an accomplished, considerably affecting saga.

Pub Date: April 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-684-83320-4

Page Count: 512

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997

GENERAL FICTION

Share your opinion of this book

More by Ann-Marie MacDonald

BOOK REVIEW

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2015

Kirkus Prize winner

National Book Award Finalist

A LITTLE LIFE

by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees , 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.  

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

More by Hanya Yanagihara

by Hanya Yanagihara

More About This Book

PERSPECTIVES

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen ) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

More by J.D. Salinger

by J.D. Salinger

SEEN & HEARD

APPRECIATIONS

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

Nancy Schoellkopf

Wild Imaginings: A Spiritual Journey

The Avian Series: stories on the spiritual path. purchase books here

Fall On Your Knees, a book review

Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald is a larger than life story, a convoluted tale of family secrets and lies.  At least three times in the novel the action occurs in clumps, and over the course of a few days or even a single night, there is more family melodrama than all of Shakespeare’s plays combined:  infants die, cars crash, shots ring out, and one or more characters (and the family cat) pass away quietly, cozily asleep in a wing-back chair or with a head comfortably positioned in an oven.  During one such chock-full episode, something horrific happens, cryptically described.  After that I spent the next third of the book in dread, anxious about what awful thing might be revealed next.

What kept me coming back was the amazing story-telling skills of Ann-Marie MacDonald.  This is a beautifully written book with long lyrical sentences, vivid scenic description and surprising metaphor, a treat to read.  Yet I had to keep asking:  what is the story here?  Certainly MacDonald has something more in mind than a sensational soap opera to traumatize the reader.  Or does she?

MacDonald moves from omniscient to third person limited point of view so seamlessly that I seldom noticed.  In this way it gives the reader a universal overview, but it also achieves an intimacy that an omniscient view often lacks.  But whose story is it?  The younger daughter Frances is the catalyst for much of the action.  She seems to be intent on deliberately re-living her eldest sister’s life, though she is only able to manage a rather twisted replica.  Why she does this, and how at that point in her life Frances even had knowledge of certain elements of Kathleen’s past, remain unanswered questions in the book.  Nonetheless this is not her story alone.  Every family member plays an intricate role in this complex story.

And so I kept waiting for a thematic thread that might pull everything together.  One thing I noticed:  for the time and place (late 19 th , early 20 th century Nova Scotia) there are a surprising number of interracial relationships, resulting in biracial children.  This adds a fascinating texture to the plot, but initially it didn’t seem to define the story.

Four hundred pages in, the penultimate section brings the stunning answers I was seeking, as well as revealing MacDonald’s masterful skill to mislead and shock the reader.  This flashback to the past through newly discovered diary entries paints a picture of young women who learn to face the unnecessary shame of their racial identities, and to love their own true natures.  It is a sweet, lovely interlude, once again disturbed by an incident of horrific violence.

The final section I think is meant to offer some peace and redemption at the conclusion, but the two younger sisters seem to have gotten little of that.  Middle sister Mercedes in particular has been pegged as such a good, long-suffering, sturdy provider, but she’s been left out of the loop when confessions were made, mea culpa’s offered, and secrets revealed.  Is it any wonder she grew into such a suspicious, manipulative shrew?  Okay, that’s my only spoiler.

Fall On Your Knees (not sure what prompted the title) is a magnificent , beautifully written story, but it’s waaaaaaay dark!  I notice most Amazon and Goodread reviewers give it five stars or they give it one.  There’s no middle ground!  I’d say it’s definitely worth the journey, but proceed at your own peril.  It is not for the faint-hearted.

I most likely will be checking out Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Amazon page and probably pick up another of her books.  But not right away.  I need a break!  Can anyone recommend something light and funny?

Share this:

Leave a reply cancel reply.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Learn More About My Books

Discover more from Wild Imaginings: A Spiritual Journey

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Truly Booked

For all those who are well and truly booked..

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald – Review

I don’t know what it is between me and books about strange families. Whenever I hear that a novel that I’m going to be reading has an unusual family structure, I’m chomping at the bit to read it. It may be simply that the world is a messy place and a family that has an unusual shape seems more real to me than the nuclear family that I had shoved down my throat when I was a kid. Or it might just be that there’s a mystery to unusual families that isn’t there with conventional ones. There’s a need to figure out how the different pieces of the family fit together to form a family unit which adds a depth to the proceedings that comes naturally.

Enter stage right: Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald.

As always, please note that some of the links below are affiliate links. If you’re interested in buying the books, please consider clicking on them! They help keep the lights on.

Fall On Your Knees has the reader following the exploits of the Piper family starting with the Patriarch, James, who falls in love with a thirteen year old Lebanese girl named Materia. They are married and are eventually joined by four children: Kathleen, Mercedes, Frances, and Lily. The Pipers are a strange type of family with subtle hints that are meant to evoke curiosity in the readers. Aside from James and Materia not getting along, all is well in James’ world, but there are shadows gathering around the edges of the screen and you know that the idyllic scene that has been set cannot last forever.

MacDonald has a wonderful way of describing the scenes in her book, to the point where it can feel like you’re watching a movie rather than reading a book. While some books would suffer for that comparison, Fall on Your Knees only becomes stronger through it with its core cast of strong and distinct female characters juxtaposed with the weakness of the people around them.

View down on Meat Cove, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada

The Piper house is brimming with secrets, large and small, and the real wonder is if the family will be able to survive those secrets or if everything will come crashing down at the most inopportune moment. Each of the daughters, in particular, has their own fleshed out character and arc with the reader getting the unique privilege of watching them grow up to feel their way through a broken world. It is a world that’s changing almost too fast for the Pipers to wrap their heads around it. Technology is expanding, cities are springing up to replace the small towns, and the world is marching its way straight into the bloodiest war that it’s ever seen.

The family can band together, damning themselves to their house of secrets or they can begin to fray, pulling apart at the seams until they’re able to scatter and save themselves. The choice is theirs, but it can be hard to see it when you live so close to the problem.

When it comes to Canadian literature, Fall on Your Knees is the book that I have recommended the most. It was the book that touched me the most and I’m so grateful that I was given it to read in university. It taps into what feels like a uniquely Canadian brand of weirdness even if I’m not sure how true that is. What is true is that reading this book feels both like a roller coaster and a punch to the gut.

Superbly paced, you’ll feel like you’re running toward the end of a mystery without ever needing to take another breath. The writing can suck you in so quickly that it’s almost dizzying and at the same time, each of the characters have their own spark of life to them that sells the story. As a reader, I would cycle between love and hate constantly, unsure of how it could be possible for me to change my mind so quickly with characters I thought I had carved into stone.

If you are able to handle some darkness in the search of light and you aren’t going to be chased away by the ugliness that lingers in the forgotten corners of a house, then I can’t recommend Fall on Your Knees enough.

Do you have any suggestions or are there things you think I’ve missed? Leave a comment below. Or if you want more posts like this? Sign up today and never miss a post!

3 thoughts on “ Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald – Review ”

• Pingback: We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson - Review - Truly Booked
• Pingback: Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell - Review - Truly Booked
• Pingback: If I did it : Confessions of the Killer by O.J. Simpson - Truly Booked

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The Book Report Network

• Bookreporter
• ReadingGroupGuides
• AuthorsOnTheWeb

Sign up for our newsletters!

Find a Guide

For book groups, what's your book group reading this month, favorite monthly lists & picks, most requested guides of 2023, when no discussion guide available, starting a reading group, running a book group, choosing what to read, tips for book clubs, books about reading groups, coming soon, new in paperback, write to us, frequently asked questions.

• Request a Guide

Advertise with Us

Add your guide, you are here:, fall on your knees.

• About the Book

The Piper family is steeped in secrets, lies, and unspoken truths. At the eye of the storm is one secret that threatens to shake their lives -- even destroy them.

Set on stormy Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia, Fall on Your Knees is an internationally acclaimed multigenerational saga that chronicles the lives of four unforgettable sisters. Theirs is a world filled with driving ambition, inescapable family bonds, and forbidden love.

Compellingly written, by turns menacingly dark and hilariously funny, this is an epic tale of five generations of sin, guilt, and redemption

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

• Publication Date: February 8, 2013
• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone
• ISBN-10: 0743237188
• ISBN-13: 9780743237185

• How to Add a Guide
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Newsletters

Copyright © 2024 The Book Report, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Ann-Marie MacDonald's life-changing novel Fall On Your Knees is now an epic six-hour play

27 years after the massively successful book was published, it's making a grand onstage debut across canada.

Social Sharing

Queeries  is a column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity through a personal lens. 

It's one of the most anticipated Canadian theatre events in recent memory: an adaptation of Ann-Marie MacDonald's first novel Fall On Your Knees , some 27 years after it was released. The two-part, six-hour play has been ten years in the making — and MacDonald is more than ready for audiences to experience this transformation of her work.

"My dream is that a person who loves the book comes to see the show, and while they're watching it, they forget that the book exists," she says.

• Queeries Playwrights assemble: 10 theatre companies are teaming up to give LGBTQ artists a dreamy opportunity

It'll be up to the many fans of Fall On Your Knees surely already with tickets in hand to let MacDonald know if her dream ends up being realized in the show. But the mere existence of the play, which will be staged in four Canadian cities (Toronto beginning January 21st, followed by Ottawa, Halifax and London, Ont.), is already a dream.

First published in 1996, Fall On Your Knees has been a wildly popular read — particularly for queer women, on whom the book centres — ever since. Chronicling three generations of Cape Breton Island's Piper family across the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the epic novel was translated into 19 languages, won countless awards (including the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book) and, most famously, was chosen to be a part of Oprah's Book Club in 2002.

"The experience of publishing that book was really definitive," MacDonald says. "Because it was a big first for me. I had written plays. I'd acted in plays. I had co-created plays either collectively or with one other partner. I'd acted in film and television and written television. So that was my milieu. When I started writing Fall On Your Knees , I really did believe I was writing another play." 

But the stage directions in that supposed play ended up getting really long — and all of a sudden MacDonald discovered she wasn't writing a play at all. 

"I realized that it was, in fact, prose fiction," she laughs. "So that was a big turning point for me. And I thought, 'This is accidental, I didn't mean to be doing this.' I didn't know how to write a novel."

Turns out she very much did. 

"It was a big, huge thing because it was such a big career shift," she says of the book's success. "I mean, I continued to work in theatre, but now there was this other big ship. And novels take longer to write, so everything else had to kind of move over and make space for that."

"And then getting that sort of attention — that had a big impact, too. First off, I was able to earn some money from that book, which gave me some creative freedom. And I had that bracing, if not startling, brush with American celebrity, which is just nuclear-sized, right? It's huge, the power of that." And she's not just talking about the effect on book sales. "Sales were impressive, sure," she says  "But I mean more the American celebrity machine. It was like being next to a nuclear reactor."

"The metabolic effect was like, 'Oh my God, I feel like I've just almost been run over by a sports car.' I mean, Oprah was so nice. She was fantastic. I had a lovely, lovely encounter with her. She's really good at her job; she's a very gracious individual. I'm talking about simply the size of that machine that they've got down there."

Say what you will about that machine, but it did ultimately help catapult Fall On Your Knees to its status as an international bestseller, which is part of the reason why its stage adaptation is such a big deal. But it's also notable because it's both a decade in the making and marks a collaboration between MacDonald and renowned theatre artist Alisa Palmer, who co-created and directed the production. Palmer just so happens to also be MacDonald's wife. 

"We had collaborated a lot before we even got together," MacDonald says. "So working together is our natural happy place. Over ten years ago now, she said, 'I want to adapt Fall On Your Knees for the stage.' And I said, 'Well, if anyone can do it, you can. And good luck with that!'"

"But I thought, 'This is monumental.' And it's her drive and persistence and vision that has made this happen."

MacDonald also told Palmer that she did not feel like she was the right person to adapt her own novel for the stage. Someone else was going to have to help Palmer with that.

"'You need somebody who is a really good playwright," MacDonald recalls telling Palmer. "Somebody who understands structure, somebody with the work ethic, the stamina and the inspiration and vision to do this. And the first person I thought of, and I think we thought of her simultaneously, was Hannah Moscovitch."

Moscovitch — one of Canada's most notable playwrights and winner of the 2021 Governor General's Award for her play Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes — worked with Palmer for a decade on the adaptation (with the length of time being extended in part due to a certain pandemic). MacDonald jokingly refers to herself during that process as "a grizzled writer off to the side."

"No, but seriously, my role really has been as production consultant, basically," she says. "I've been on tap for whoever needs me, whether it's Hannah saying, 'Hey, read this draft' or working pretty closely with Alisa in terms of everything she has done. I've been at every workshop, so I've given a lot of feedback. I've been in and out of rehearsals."

"Yes, I wrote the underlying novel that's important and I'm a resource in that way, especially now to the actors. But I think where I'm really useful is the fact that I have this other skill set, which is as a theatre professional. I'm not at all a stranger to the entire process from page to stage from the point of view of a playwright, as an actor, from working very closely with directors and designers. So in that way, I'm a good ingredient, you know? I'm a fresh eye on fresh blood."

• Why are playwrights moving to TV writing — and do the two mediums need to be feuding?

MacDonald has been putting that fresh eye on rehearsals over the last several weeks. And she's found an unexpected gratitude for the fact that she, like everyone else who is not an actor in the production, has had to wear a mask during that process.

"We're trying to keep everybody safe and healthy," she says. "But I found myself frequently grateful for the mask — not because of COVID, but because I was watching the actors just work through scenes under work lights in the rehearsal hall. And my jaw is hanging open and I'm getting chills all over my body just watching them work."

"I thought, 'Ok, this show is on track to give the audience the same experience as the reader has when they read the book.' I think that's the alchemy that is being achieved. And I think that's extraordinary."  Fall On Your Knees will hold its world premiere (in two parts, each with intermission) at the Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto from January 21 – February 4, 2023. It will then continue to the Neptune Theatre in Halifax, February 10 – March 5, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, March 8 – 25, and the Grand Theatre in London, March 29 – April 2. More info and tickets can be found here .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Knegt (he/him) is a writer, producer and host for CBC Arts. He writes the LGBTQ-culture column Queeries (winner of the Digital Publishing Award for best digital column in Canada) and hosts and produces the talk series Here & Queer. He's also spearheaded the launch and production of series Canada's a Drag, variety special Queer Pride Inside, and interactive projects Superqueeroes and The 2010s: The Decade Canadian Artists Stopped Saying Sorry. Collectively, these projects have won Knegt five Canadian Screen Awards. Beyond CBC, Knegt is also the filmmaker of numerous short films, the author of the book About Canada: Queer Rights and the curator and host of the monthly film series Queer Cinema Club at Toronto's Paradise Theatre. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter @peterknegt.

Related Stories

• Queeries Crippled is a love story from the darkest moment in Paul David Power's life
• Queeries With his new play, Jordan Tannahill adapts Greta Thunberg's words into a confrontational chorus
• Queeries Trans and non-binary bodies come together in power with Cassils' first work of contemporary dance
• Queeries Fire Island revolutionizes the queer rom-com by reimagining Jane Austen

Add some “good” to your morning and evening.

Say hello to our newsletter: hand-picked links plus the best of CBC Arts, delivered weekly.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Google Terms of Service apply.

Review of Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Fall on Your Knees

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Sometimes the best books are the books that are actually more than one story. Fall On Your Knees is a difficult book to summarize, or review, in a way that could do it justice. It is one of those sweeping multi-generational pieces of historical fiction, but at the same time it’s really just a story about four sisters. Against the backdrop of Cape Breton Island and New York City from the turn of the 20th century all the way to the advent of World War II, Ann-Marie MacDonald shows us how the good and bad actions we take in life ripple outward to touch the lives of everyone around us.

MacDonald’s narrative is cyclical and self-referential. We don’t find out who the narrator is until the very end (though you can probably guess after a while). Though mostly linear, there are flashbacks throughout, and a detailled accounting of Kathleen’s time in New York is deferred to the penulimate section for dramatic effect. The story’s power comes from how the setting around the main characters changes, almost like a time-lapse video. When James and Materia marry, their corner of Cape Breton Island is unremarkable and undistinguished. We get to watch a town spring up, miners’ strike, the devastation of war, and the Great Depression. While the characters grow older, go to school, take or change vocations, the story that MacDonald tells never seems to change. It’s always about the tension between the good and evil parts of the soul, that desire to do right by each other and that temptation to be mischievous.

It’s the nature of a character-driven book such as this that it’s hard to identify protagonists and antagonists. Each character takes their turn at both; much as in real life, it’s largely a matter of perspective. Even in cases where the character seems more villainous than not, like James, or more saint than sinner, like Lily, their actions bely that simplified morality.

When James marries Materia over her parents’ disapproval, it seems for about two and a half pages that Fall On Your Knees will be a love story. Rugged Canadian of Irish descent makes good with daughter of Lebanese immigrants, settles down, and becomes a respected piano tuner. MacDonald lets us cling to this vision, as I said, for a few pages, spinning out the fantasy that James and Materia might be happy together. Having manipulated us by presenting it as a love-match between a precocious young woman and a headstrong young man, she pivots, pulls off the blinders, and shows us the other perspective:

But deep down he winced at the thought of showing Materia to anyone. He was grateful they lived in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her any more, he did. It was just that, recently, it had struck him taht other people might think there was something strange. They might think he’d married a child.

So, love story, denied, or rather, aborted. Passion fizzles out to be replaced only by a kind of bewildered regret, which soon kindles resentment. James has such ambition: he orders a crate of books—a crate !—from England with the intention of becoming an educated, well-read, learned man. He wants to move in higher circles than he was born into. And he is frustrated when it becomes clear that Materia will be more hindrance than help in this regard. It’s not her fault; she was raised in a sheltered way, and she is so very young. Yet MacDonald gives her ambition as well: she discovers her love for performing, for playing the piano for vaudeville acts. What might Materia have become if James had believed in and supported her instead of shunned her?

It’s interesting to note what doesn’t happen in Materia and James’ marriage. As far as we know, James never cheats on her (with the one exception, as we learn at the end, but that is … different). He does not beat her regularly—there are moments when he hits her, yes, and MacDonald rightly portrays these as the inexcusable acts they are. He doesn’t leave her (unless you count going to war). I mention these things, because in spite of the evident dissatisfaction on both sides, these two try to muddle through. On Materia’s part, it’s likely that she sees little other choice, especially after Mercedes and Frances are born. On James’ part, it’s that he wants to be seen as a good man. And good men don’t abandon their wives and families, right? I can’t help but feel like some of this subtext is grounded inexorably in the period: in a more contemporary setting, Fall On Your Knees would involve messy affairs, fast cars, divorce, and in the inevitable movie adaptation, a car chase and a running-through-the-airport scene.

Reading this book a second time, of course, means that I have the benefit of what little I remembered about it. I don’t know if I completely comprehended the foreshadowing of James’ demon when I first read this book; this time around, of course, it feels rather heavy-handed. But it seems like that is the point:

The next day, James outsmarts the demon for the second time. He enlists.… … Materia arrives at Mount Carmel and hurries over to Mary’s grotto. There she prostrates herself as best she can, what with her unborn cargo, and gives thanks to Our Lady for sending The War.

MacDonald keeps the specifics of what happens vague until the end of the book, but she foreshadows early on that James cannot outsmart his demon forever. With this, she declares, “This is a tragedy.” For a book so steeped in Catholic symbolism, there is a strong whiff of Calvinist determinism to this: James is destined to survive the war; Kathleen is destined to seek her fortune in New York; all are destined for tragedy.

MacDonald continues in this tenor with the trio of Mercedes, Frances, and Lily. With the first two, Materia’s influence is more pronounced: Mercedes grows up staunchly Catholic, and she and Frances share with their mother a muddled, fairy-talesque use of Arabic words to communicate and commiserate. These two fill the void of motherhood for Lily, who never gets to know either Materia or Kathleen.

It’s particularly interesting how Mercedes’ life resembles that of her parents. Like James, she ends up making many sacrifices for her family. She takes on jobs she doesn’t necessarily want, puts off her own ambitions, studies by correspondence rather than going to university in person. Mercedes tries to dress these sacrifices in humility, like a good Catholic, and I appreciate the way MacDonald draws out the irony and pride that taints her actions:

Tears fill Mercedes’ eyes. It is not fair that Frances should bask in Daddy’s affection and the approval of sundry shopkeepers for something that ought to have her hiding her face in shame. It is not fair that Sister Saint Eustace managed to make Mercedes feel like the bad one—when everyone knows that she’s the good one. It is not fair that Frances will have a baby, while Mercedes was denied a husband. None of it is fair, but that is not why Mercedes is weeping freely against her pillow…. Everyone seems to think that motherhood is the best thing that could possibly happen to [Frances]. Everyone but Mercedes. For she knows that once Frances has a child, Frances will no longer need a mother.

Mercedes in her hubris is a recognizable stereotype of someone we all know. Her genuine desire to do good through her sacrifices is mixed with the yearning for recognition she feels her martyrdom must bring. And when it doesn’t—or when someone spurns it deliberately, as Lily does by rejecting the Lourdes plan—she can only recover by reframing what happens in light of faith and her own ego. Well, if Lily doesn’t want her leg healed, doesn’t want to be whole, she must be possessed! In this way Mercedes justifies her past sacrifice and reassures herself that neither she nor her interpretation of her faith could be wrong; the world simply hasn’t lived up to its promise.

In both Mercedes and Frances, even more so than in their father, we see how people grow up and change in the unlikeliest of ways. Mercedes is so full of dreams of marrying and settling down with a family, even if it is with the Jewish boy next door. And Frances—wild Frances, showgirl Frances, sex worker Frances … would she ever have thought she would be the mothering type? Though Frances probably undergoes the most dramatic of changes, it is just another manifestation of MacDonald’s theme that our lives—while seemingly driven by destiny—are unpredictable, malleable, and full of surprises.

Lily is interesting in that, for the majority of her time in the story, she is not really a protagonist or antagonist at all, but rather an object on which other characters enact their designs. Mercedes mothers Lily, raises Lily, pities Lily, loves Lily, and harbours the secret hope that Lily might be a saint. Lily being a saint is far more preferable to Mercedes being a saint, of course, because being a saint is a sucky job. You have to suffer—physically, in Lily’s case—and be ever so holy. Being the sister of a saint, the person who first recognized their sainthood, is a much better gig.

Lily is an excuse for Frances to embrace her wilder side. Don’t forget that, originally, the siblings went Kathleen, Mercedes, and then Frances in order of age. Frances was the youngest child, the baby. It’s only after the epoch that Mercedes suddenly becomes the eldest and Frances the middle child. So it’s interesting to see them take up the stereotypical mantles of those titles: Mercedes becomes the responsible one, and Frances can be the wild one, because James can pin his hopes and dreams on Lily once more.

I really can’t do justice to this book in a review of any length. I haven’t even scratched the surface of the themes MacDonald weaves throughout it. I could go on to talk about racism, about the effects of war at home, about the march of history, family, and religion. As for the characters, who indisputably make the book what it is, I have only managed to give the briefest overview of what makes them so complex and well-realized.

So let’s finish off by talking about Lily at the end of the book, by which I really mean, of course, talking about Kathleen in New York.

I remembered James’ demon, but I did not remember the twist that MacDonald introduces during Kathleen’s time in New York. We learn early on that James goes to retrieve her because she has fallen in love, ostensibly with a black man. MacDonald carefully shapes our expectations in such a way that when the details come to light, it’s clever. She plays both on our heteronormative expectations of society in general as well as our expectations of that time period. This is just another facet in the way that MacDonald gently probes the layers of people’s personalities. Like so many other minor characters in this book, Rose takes on a life of her own without stealing the stage. Fall On Your Knees is one of those special novels that manage to contain more of a universe than most: a true microcosm rather than the two-dimensional set that falls apart if you view it from another angle.

Some books capitalize on a single tragedy, one moment of absolute disaster that has consequences for the rest of the characters’ lives. The plot and conflict then comes from watching them pick up the pieces, if they can, and making their peace where they cannot. Other books, though, capture how life is more properly a series of tragedies, some small, some big. Our lives routinely shatter and reassemble, seemingly on the universe’s whim or of their own accord; we don’t pick up the pieces so much as try to reinterpret the map after a geological upheaval. Fall On Your Knees is like this. It’s not just that bad things happen: lots of bad things happen, but good things happen too, and worse still, sometimes it’s hard to tell the two apart. Sometimes when we think we’re doing good we are actually doing the most harm—and vice versa. In these respects, this book reminds me a lot of that other inexpressibly wonderful story, A Fine Balance . However, Fall On Your Knees feels a little more optimistic in its prognosis for its characters. There is no such thing as “moving on” or “moving past” a tragedy, because in living through it, it changes you. It is just as much a part of you as every good thing that happens. So as MacDonald closes out the book by showing us the time-lapse photographs of the rest of the Pipers’ lives, we get to see the sum over all their histories.

And then Anthony finds Lily, and the story starts over again.

This is a book that sprawls. It is beautifully written, MacDonald’s style being without parallel here. I first read her play Good Night Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) in first-year English, and that’s what led me to Fall On Your Knees . Sometime after that I think I also read The Way the Crow Flies , but it never left as much of a lasting impression on me as this book. For nearly eight years I’ve cited this as one of my favourite novels. But the truth is, I barely remembered the details. I remembered only the exhilaration I felt reading it, the sense that this is so good it’s painful.

Yet I put off re-reading it for the longest time. I was scared that if I did, I wouldn’t like it as much. I would discover that my memory is more false than normal, that it just isn’t as good as I thought it was. I didn’t want that to happen.

This is my 1000th review on Goodreads, though. I could lie and say I don’t care, but breaking into four digits does feel pretty special. I put a lot of time and effort into these reviews, so to say that I’ve written so many is something worth celebrating. To do that, I wanted to review a very special book—and what better than the book I didn’t want to re-read?

I was a fool; I should have had more faith. Fall On Your Knees is every bit as good as it was the first time I read it—maybe more. It cannot offer answers or reassurance, but instead only the certainty that life is complex and difficult. This is a book that sprawls, not just because it covers multiple generations and a dynamic network of characters, but because their stories have no clear starting or stopping points. Unlike a classical tragedy, which ends in the clarity of the protagonist’s death, these characters have to go on living.

This is the truth of Fall On Your Knees and the inadequacy of the novel form that it exposes: stories don’t end after the tragedy is dealt with. As much as we might like, we cannot boil down our judgement of a person to “did they do good?” or “were they a good person?” Life is a series of events, good or bad or a mixture as determined by how we react—but every event shatters us, changes us. Life is the act of continuously rebuilding ourselves. The story does not stop, never stops, as long as we are there to shatter and rebuild, over and over.

And so I’m not going to stop.

Here’s to the next thousand.

Share on the socials

Twitter Facebook

Let me know what you think

Fall on Your Knees Summary & Study Guide

Fall on Your Knees Summary & Study Guide Description

Fall on Your Knees is the story of the Piper family. Based in a small Canadian town in the late 1800s through the mid-twentieth century, the novel tells the story of the relationships between the father James, his wife Materia, and their three daughters, Kathleen, Mercedes, and Frances. James' obsession with his eldest child Kathleen affects the entire family for many years to come.

James meets Materia Mahmoud when he goes to fix her family's piano. The two fall in love and elope, much to the dismay of Materia's father, who disowns her. They move into a home and quickly have their first child, Kathleen. James grows enchanted with his young daughter and her singing ability. He quickly devotes a lot of time in preparing her to become a famous singer. Materia feels no motherly love for Kathleen, no matter how much she tries, and worries about the amount of attention James pays to their daughter. They have two more daughters, Mercedes and Frances, who bond much more easily with Materia. After beating Kathleen and then becoming aroused by her, James decides to leave home until Kathleen is old enough to go to New York for voice lessons. He enlists in the military and is shipped overseas to France. When he returns from the front, he sends Kathleen to New York and has her stay with Giles, a spinster cousin. After several months in New York, Kathleen falls in love and James finds out by way of an anonymous letter. He brings her back home. Nine months later, she dies while giving birth to twins.

Frances takes the newborn babies and baptizes them in the creek, only to have one baby, a boy, drown. The daughter, Lily, survives but contracts polio. Two days after Kathleen is buried, Materia dies as well, leaving Mercedes to help James raise Frances and Lily. Lily is being passed off as James' and Materia's child. Frances and Lily spend hours playing together and Frances tells Lily stories about Ambrose, her twin brother who died and is now her guardian angel. Mercedes graduates from high school but stays home instead of going away to college. Frances is expelled from school and winds up working at a speakeasy run by her uncle Jameel. She spies Leo Taylor, Kathleen's former driver, working with James and decides he must be the father of Kathleen's children. Frances sets up an elaborate plot to seduce Leo and become pregnant by him. His wife, Adelaide, threatens Frances but she tricks Leo into taking her to an abandoned mine where she seduces him. When Teresa, the Mahmoud's former maid and Leo's sister, finds out what Frances has done, she shoots her in the stomach. Frances survives and forgives Teresa. She has a baby boy who she is told has died a few days after birth. Instead, Mercedes sends the infant away to be raised in an orphanage. When Frances returns, home she and James become closer and he tells her the truth about what happened to Kathleen. Before he dies, James gives her Kathleen's diary, which tells the story of Kathleen's adventures in New York. Frances gives the diary to Lily along with cash so she can find out what happened to Rose Lacroix, Kathleen's friend and lover in New York. Lily makes the long journey to New York and finds Rose, who lives as a man and has become a famous musician. After Frances' death from a long illness, Mercedes leaves information for Anthony, Frances' son, so that he can find Lily and Rose and find out more about the Piper family. When he arrives in New York, Lily instantly knows who he is and begins to tell him all about Frances.

Read more from the Study Guide

FOLLOW BOOKRAGS:

Fall On Your Knees (Oprah's Book Club)

By Ann-Marie MacDonald

BUY THE BOOK

Average rating: 4.17

These clubs recently read this book...

Ventura Women's Book Club

Community Reviews

See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.

More books by this author

• Sign up and get a free ebook!
• Don't miss our ebook deals!

Free shipping when you spend $40. Terms apply.

Fall On Your Knees

Trade Paperback

LIST PRICE $19.00

Buy from Other Retailers

• Amazon logo
• Bookshop logo

Table of Contents

Reading group guide, about the book.

Get a FREE ebook by joining our mailing list today! Plus, receive recommendations for your next Book Club read.

About The Author

Novelist and dramatist Ann-Marie MacDonald is the author of the internationally bestselling and award-winning novel Fall on Your Knees . She is also the playwright of Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, which won the Governor General's Award for Drama. She lives in Toronto.

Product Details

• Publisher: Scribner (January 24, 2002)
• Length: 512 pages
• ISBN13: 9780743237185

Browse Related Books

• Fiction > Literary
• Fiction > Women

Related Articles

• Rediscovered Reviews: 6 Powerful Books That Resonate More Over Time - Off the Shelf
• 10 Bewitching Novels Most Popular This October - Off the Shelf
• The 10 Most Popular Books That Captured Our Hearts This September - Off the Shelf
• The 10 Most Popular Books We Added to Our TBR This August - Off the Shelf
• 12 Classic Oprah Book Club Picks Guaranteed to Get Your Club Talking - Off the Shelf
• 12 Literary Families to Invite Over for Thanksgiving - Off the Shelf
• A Novel of Intense and Powerful Beauty - Off the Shelf

Resources and Downloads

High resolution images.

• Book Cover Image (jpg): Fall On Your Knees Trade Paperback 9780743237185

Get a FREE ebook by joining our mailing list today!

Plus, receive recommendations and exclusive offers on all of your favorite books and authors from Simon & Schuster.

You may also like: Thriller and Mystery Staff Picks

More to Explore

Limited Time eBook Deals

Check out this month's discounted reads.

Our Summer Reading Recommendations

Red-hot romances, poolside fiction, and blockbuster picks, oh my! Start reading the hottest books of the summer.

This Month's New Releases

From heart-pounding thrillers to poignant memoirs and everything in between, check out what's new this month.

Tell us what you like and we'll recommend books you'll love.

‘Fall On Your Knees’ Review: A Laborious Six Hours on Stage With One of Canada’s Favorite Novels

By Glenn Sumi

If nothing else, you’ve got to admire the epic scope and ambition of “Fall on Your Knees,” a two-part, six-hour adaptation of one of the most beloved Canadian novels of all time – Ann-Marie MacDonald’s sweeping saga about several generations of a Cape Breton family from the 1900s to mid-1960s.

Related Stories

2024 Live Music Business Is Driving Record Revenues, but Some Data Points Raise Concerns

'Toy Story 5' Sets Andrew Stanton as Director and Writer, Teases Toys vs. Tech

Popular on variety.

Part One, subtitled “Family Tree,” begins with the story of self-made Cape Bretoner James Piper (Tim Campbell), a burly, imposing piano tuner who, at age 19, falls in love with the 12-year-old Materia (Cara Rebecca), who comes from a strict Lebanese-Canadian family and is promptly disowned by her family. 

Materia, who desperately wants a son to please her estranged father, gives birth instead to three daughters in the remote New Waterford: the vivacious and musically gifted Kathleen (Samantha Hill), the devout and responsible Mercedes (Jenny L. Wright) and the rebellious firebrand Frances (Deborah Hay). Over the course of their marriage, James grows increasingly distant from his wife, although he feels an unnatural attraction to his daughters, especially Kathleen, who, after he returns home battle-scarred from World War I, he sends down to New York City to study singing. 

The mystery of what happens to Kathleen in New York, and why James brings her back, pregnant, to Cape Breton, hangs over the book and play and provides the narrative engine for the work’s second part, subtitled “The Diary.”

What adapters Alisa Palmer (who also directs) and Hannah Moscovitch (credited with the script) have successfully done, however, is emphasize certain elements that give the show some thematic through lines and consistency. The two evoke the toxic patriarchal systems in place in both the Piper household and the one Materia grew up in under her strict Lebanese father, Mr. Mahmoud (Antoine Yared). James’s physical violence, which is merely one element of his more sympathetic portrait in the book, is ratcheted up in the stage version. Campbell’s threatening presence, Anita Nittoly’s fight choreography and the realistic effects by sound designer Brian Kenny ensure his violent actions land with brutal force.

Music forms one of the overarching themes of both the book and the play, and without it the two-part production would be unwatchable. Under music supervisor Sean Mayes, a dozen or so songs — whether performed in Sydney speakeasies, Harlem nightclubs or classical music rehearsal studios — help mix up the show’s rhythms and moods. There’s also a musical motif in Camellia Koo’s otherwise minimal set that suggests the action is playing out under the taut strings of a grand piano. 

But consistent themes, convincing depictions of violence and a few lively musical numbers aren’t enough to fill six hours. What’s lacking is a sense of theatricality, something that amounts to more than a mere accretion of scenes and incidents. (More than once I thought to myself, “Why a play and not a miniseries?” Moscovitch, a writer on AMC’s hit “Interview with the Vampire” adaptation, could have penned a pretty decent one.)

The performers do their best to breathe life into their underdeveloped characters. Wright brings dignity and stoicism to the long-suffering, responsible sister Mercedes, getting to show off range as a jaded New Yorker in the play’s second part. Janelle Cooper proves she’s a force of nature as Adelaide, a Black woman whose life intersects with both the Mahmouds and the Pipers, and Sweet Jessie Hogan, an extroverted Harlem blues singer.

Campbell’s hulking James doesn’t have much of an arc to play, but his ability to go from amiable Maritimer to sinister abuser is deeply effective. Amaka Umeh brings authority and confidence to a key character in Part Two, and Diane Flacks provides some much-needed comic relief as a helpful Jewish neighbor, a well-meaning nun in small-town Nova Scotia and a kindly aunt with a few secrets of her own in Greenwich Village. 

Her performance, more than anything else about the play, will make you want to fall on your knees in admiration. 

Bluma Appel Theatre; 867 seats; $109 CAD ($82 US) top per part. Part One: Opened January 26, 2023. Reviewed January 26. Running time: THREE HOURS. Part Two: Opened January 27. Reviewed January 27. Running time: THREE HOURS. 

• Production: A presentation by the National Arts Centre, Vila Brevis Arts, Canadian Stage, Neptune Theatre, Grand Theatre Production of a play in two parts and five acts by Hannah Moscovitch and Alisa Palmer, based on the novel by Ann-Marie MacDonald. 
• Crew: Directed by Alisa Palmer. Choreographed by Natasha Powell. Sets, Camellia Koo; lights, Leigh Ann Vardy; sound, Brian Kenny; production stage manager, Michael Hart; music supervision, orchestration, and arrangements, Sean Mayes.
• Cast: Deborah Hay, Jenny L. Wright, Samantha Hill, Eva Foote, Tim Campbell, Amaka Umeh, Maryem Tollar, Janelle Cooper, Antoine Yared, Diane Flacks, Drew Moore, Tony Ofori, Cara Rebecca, Dakota Jamal Wellman, Kim Chisholm, Naomi Ngebulana. 

More from Variety

‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Teaser: Jeffrey Dean Morgan Reveals Lucille Is Back for Season 2

‘Existential Threat’ of AI Central to Animation Guild Negotiations

Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride on Carol and Daryl’s ‘Tangible, Cosmic Bond’ in ‘The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon’ Season 2

The Future of FAST: A Special Report on Free Streaming

More from our brands, leagues cup livestream: how to watch the soccer tournament online.

How Perfumer Francis Kurkdjian Learned to Bottle the Zeitgeist

Most Valuable NFL Teams 2024: Cowboys First to Top $10 Billion

The Best Loofahs and Body Scrubbers, According to Dermatologists

The TVLine-Up: What’s Returning, New and Leaving the Week of Aug. 25

Fall on your Knees

58 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Book 1, Chapter 11

Book 1, Chapters 12-23

Book 2, Chapter 24-Book 3, Chapter 35

Book 3, Chapter 36-Book 5, Chapter 47

Book 6, Chapter 48-Book 7, Chapter 57

Book 7, Chapter 58-Book 9, Chapter 65

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Summary and Study Guide

Fall on Your Knees (1996), first-time novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald’s ambitious multigenerational family saga set in the early decades of the 20th century, moves from the bleak coastal towns of Canada’s Cape Breton Island to the bustling New York City of the Jazz Era. Recalling both the psychological richness of William Faulkner’s family sagas set in Yoknapatawpha County and the dark passions in the Gothic tales of Flannery O’Connor, Fall on Your Knees follows three very different sisters, Kathleen, Mercedes, and Frances Piper , and their struggle to find the sanctity and dignity promised by their Catholic faith in a lurid world of violence, greed, and aberrant lust. In the interrelated stories of the Piper clan, the novel investigates The Urgency of Sexuality , The Corrosive Effects of Secrets , The Terrifying Immediacy of Death , and The Conflict Between Flesh and Spirit .

The novel was an immediate sensation and became an international best-seller translated into more than 20 languages. It earned the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Novel, as well as the Canadian Writers Association Prize for Best Novel. In addition, it was shortlisted for the prestigious Giller Prize, awarded annually for the best book released by a Canadian publisher. Six years after its publication, the novel found renewed popularity when it was selected by Oprah’s Book Club. In 2015, the novel was adapted into a four-part television miniseries by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

This study guide references the 2005 Touchstone paperback edition.  

Content Warning : The novel contains graphic depictions of violence, including combat, death by suicide, and medical trauma. It also details pedophilia, sexual assault, incest, and rape. In addition, it depicts incidents of racial intolerance and bigotry, anti-gay bias, and the effects of drug and alcohol addiction.

Plot Summary

At the turn of the 20th century, James Piper , a self-taught piano tuner, arrives on the remote island of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia certain he can make a good living. He meets 13-year-old Materia Mahmoud while tuning her family’s piano. They elope, incurring the wrath of Materia’s conservative Lebanese family. When Materia delivers their first child, Kathleen, James loses interest in his wife and dotes on the baby girl. Materia suspects James’s obsession might be toxic. Despite having three additional daughters (Mercedes, Frances, and Lily, who dies of crib death—now known as sudden infant death syndrome), James fixates on Kathleen, who develops a remarkable talent for singing. James is certain she has a future in opera.

Fearing that his sexual interest in his daughter might be dangerous, James volunteers to serve overseas in World War I. However, when he returns impacted by what he has witnessed, he cannot shake his obsession with Kathleen. He sends her to New York to study music. Months later, James receives an anonymous letter saying that Kathleen was engaging in reckless living. James heads to New York, storms into Kathleen’s apartment, and finds her making love to a Black man. He pulls the man off his daughter and, enraged and aroused, rapes her. The two return to Cape Breton. Within weeks, Kathleen finds herself pregnant.

After keeping the pregnancy secret, Kathleen dies delivering twins: Ambrose and Lily. Ambrose drowns when Kathleen’s sister Frances tries to baptize him in a creek; Lily, survives, but contracts polio after Frances dips her into the fetid creek also. Days later, Materia, overcome with grief, dies by suicide. James begins a lucrative business as a bootlegger.

Frances grows up to be a rebel, getting expelled from school. Mercedes takes up the work of a mother, determined to raise the Piper clan. She has neither the time nor the inclination for romance and abandons her dream of college. Frances is drawn to Lily, who is raised believing that Materia is her mother. Lily, for her part, worships Frances. Lily comes to believe her dead twin is her guardian angel and that she is gifted with spiritual powers.

Frances decides to run away to make money to take Lily to the healing shrine at Lourdes in France. Frances becomes a singer and, despite her age, a part-time sex worker at a club run by her maternal uncle. Frances becomes fascinated by Teresa, the Mahmoud family’s Black maid, and by Teresa’s married brother Leo Taylor (nicknamed Ginger). Believing that Ginger is the father of her dead sister’s twins, Frances decides to corrupt Ginger to punish him. Frances seduces him in a cave that is part of the island’s abandoned mine system. When Teresa finds out, she shoots the now-pregnant Frances in the belly. But she does not kill the baby, and Frances survives.

The delivery is difficult. Frances, in and out of consciousness, is told that the baby, whom she has already named Aloysius, has died. She is devastated, and returns home and seeks her father’s forgiveness. The two become close, much to the chagrin of Mercedes.

James, by this time, is a successful bootlegger. Mercedes runs the house with a joyless commitment. She is forced to take care of James after he has two debilitating strokes. Meanwhile, Frances learns that her son did not die at childbirth: Mercedes, determined to save the family’s reputation and worried about raising a child of diverse racial heritage during a time when multiracial relationships are illegal, bundled Aloysius (whom she renamed Ambrose) off to a distant Catholic orphanage for “coloured” children.

James gives Frances the diary Kathleen kept during her time in New York. The diary recounts Kathleen’s months of training to audition for the Metropolitan Opera Company and how she fell in love with a Black jazz pianist named Rose LaCroix. The affair was hot and steamy (Rose dressing like a man whenever they made the rounds of the speakeasies)—it was Rose that James had found in bed with Kathleen. Frances confronts James, now near death, and he confesses everything. He dies days later. Frances sends Lily, now 16, to New York to track down Rose, now a famous pianist who passes as a man. They form an immediate friendship, and Lily also bonds with Rose’s mother, a white woman with a heroin addiction.

Frances tells Mercedes about Kathleen’s rape. Mercedes cannot believe she has given up her life to help her morally depraved father. Frances and Mercedes live together for years. Frances dies before Mercedes can tell her that her son Aloysius/Ambrose is still alive.

In New York, a young Black man who identifies himself as Anthony Piper visits Lily and Rose, now living together. He carries a gift from Mercedes, who contacted him through the orphanage after Frances’s death and gave him an illustrated family tree that Mercedes created. The tree lays out the secret relationships, illegitimate births, deaths by suicide, and violent deaths that define the Piper family, including Anthony’s own story. Lily, overcome by emotion, welcomes Anthony and begins to tell him the story of his family.

Related Titles

By Ann-Marie MacDonald

Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)

Featured Collections

Canadian Literature

View Collection

Childhood & Youth

Good & Evil

Historical Fiction

LGBTQ Literature

Magical Realism

Pride Month Reads

Pride & Shame

Religion & Spirituality

Sexual Harassment & Violence

Truth & Lies

• Literature & Fiction
• Genre Fiction

Sorry, there was a problem.

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

FALL ON YOUR KNEES Hardcover – January 1, 1997

• Print length 508 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Simon and Schuster
• Publication date January 1, 1997
• Dimensions 1.5 x 6.5 x 10 inches
• ISBN-10 0684833204
• ISBN-13 978-0684833200
• See all details

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon and Schuster (January 1, 1997)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 508 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0684833204
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0684833200
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.75 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.5 x 6.5 x 10 inches
• #17,194 in Family Saga Fiction
• #93,021 in American Literature (Books)
• #111,784 in Historical Fiction (Books)

About the author

Ann-marie macdonald.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 54% 23% 12% 5% 6% 54%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 54% 23% 12% 5% 6% 23%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 54% 23% 12% 5% 6% 12%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 54% 23% 12% 5% 6% 5%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 54% 23% 12% 5% 6% 6%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Customers say

Customers find the writing style lovely and well-developed. They also say the characters are compelling and well developed. Opinions are mixed on the emotional tone, darkness, and plot. Some find the story compelling and uplifting, while others say it's disturbing and twisted.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the writing style lovely, lyrical, and creative. They also say the author is talented and knows how to tell a story.

"... Beautiful writing , lyric, irreverent, godly, godless." Read more

"...I found this book well written and very clever in the handling of the story line. It left me in suspense up til the very ending." Read more

"...The only exception is the Diary of Kathleen, which is very lyrical and so well-written that it seems that somebody else altogether wrote it...." Read more

"...I thought the author was very talented and really knows how to tell a story ." Read more

Customers find the characters in the book well-developed, and they feel like they're living their lives along with them.

"...The female characters were especially well-developed here, although I would have appreciated a bit more insight as to how Frances turned out the..." Read more

"...words makes you hear the sounds, smell the smells, and feel what the characters are feeling ...." Read more

"...The characters in the book are well developed and made me want to step into the story to protect, and or redirect the actions of the individuals in..." Read more

"...I did really like the actual development of the individual characters , and the rather strangeness of the interactions in the family." Read more

Customers are mixed about the emotional tone. Some find the storyline compelling, twisty, riveting, and satisfying. They also say it's a sad, lovely story that's complex and beautiful. However, others say it’s disturbing, depressing, with absurd situations and events.

"...The last pages of the book are quite riveting , though I wished that the character of Lily as an adult was fleshed out more." Read more

"A very sad and twisted story , hard to read. Not sure I’ll finish it." Read more

"...Kudos to the author for creating a story with many plot twists , a richness in details, and the understanding of the affects of incest, racial mixing..." Read more

"...And, yes, it does have some disturbing situations ... but it's a fictional story, an escape from the doldrums of everyday life...." Read more

Customers are mixed about the plot. Some find it believable, while others say it's horribly sad and twisted.

"...Beautiful writing, lyric, irreverent, godly , godless." Read more

"...I just can't stand cruelty and it is horribly sad and twisted .Do not read if you're allergic to cruel people and films or empathetic...." Read more

"...Just dropped a copy off to a friend today. It’s dark and gloomy and hopeful and shocking." Read more

"...In my opinion, "Fall On Your Knees," is fiction at it's finest . Absorbing. Brilliant." Read more

Customers have mixed opinions about the darkness of the book. Some find it compelling, while others say it's the worst book they've ever read.

"... It's dark and disjointed, I don't like the characters either." Read more

" Dark , human, tragic, compelling!..." Read more

"...Worst book I ever read; very DARK .Full of predjudice, abuse, incest, etc...." Read more

Customers find the book very hard to follow and say the content makes no sense.

"...The story is presented in a disjointed fashion that is hard to follow without frequent searches (glad I read the kindle version)...." Read more

"...Was beautifully written and sometimes a hard content , but kept me reading late in the night...." Read more

"This was a very hard to follow book , although it was filled with twists and turns...." Read more

"I didn't like this book at all. It honestly made no sense . It arrived at the last possible day, too...." Read more

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

Fall on Your Knees

Ann-marie macdonald. simon & schuster, $23 (512pp) isbn 978-0-684-83320-0.

Reviewed on: 03/31/1997

Genre: Fiction

Hardcover - 730 pages - 978-1-58724-258-8

Hardcover - 566 pages - 978-0-394-28159-9

Mass Market Paperbound - 672 pages - 978-0-7434-6652-3

Open Ebook - 576 pages - 978-1-4464-1823-9

Open Ebook - 512 pages - 978-1-4516-4165-3

Open Ebook - 1 pages - 978-1-59887-352-8

Other - 1 pages - 978-0-307-36632-0

Paperback - 512 pages - 978-0-7432-3718-5

Paperback - 978-3-492-22728-5

Paperback - 508 pages - 978-0-684-83868-7

• Apple Books
• Barnes & Noble

More By and About this Author chevron_right

Featured Fiction Reviews