Fall on Your Knees: A Novel

3.25 stars

It is the early 1900s in Nova Scotia. 13-year old Materia falls for James, so she breaks away from her arranged marriage her parents have made for her and marries James, only to be disowned by her parents. James dotes on their first daughter, Kathleen and though, years later, they have more daughters, their marriage turns sour. The book not only follows them, but follows their daughters during their lives.

I was a little disappointed. I really liked The Way the Crow Flies, but for me, this wasn't nearly as interesting. It didn't grab me or hold my interest. I really didn't like any of the characters, which always makes it harder for me to enjoy a book. I wasn't compelled to pick up the book and/or to keep reading. Overall, I thought it was o.k., but nothing special.

i've read it 3 times already. great book. shocking and memorable.

This novel may possibly be the key hole to many of our silenced victims' lives, whether they've been consumed by unwanted penetration, bewildered, hindered from accomplishing equality, and brought down to desperation to the full extent; even without knowing it. Fall On Your Knees is an incredibly written fiction in which history, culture, and the hidden disturbances of social issues, have been composed into one. It can be difficult to comprehend, and attempting to soak up each word may take courage.

For the willing eyes that seek to discover the non fiction's secret truths in a fictional world, it is best to be warned to open up your mind before opening the pages that expose humanity's filth. Without an open mind, it is guaranteed to injure the mind of one that is weak. It is not advised to read the novel as casual. The key to reading one that exposes the human world takes a lot of comprehension, dissection, and evaluation. In order to survive a novel that holds so much, it is best to keep your logic on guard, while your emotions are kept tamed. In refusing to do so, it would not be a surprise to find yourself unable to cope with the mental disturbances and emotional grievances you've welcomed by not reading it with a controlled heart and careful eyes.

pg 375

One would consider this as perverted. But only those with perverted minds would look over these passages again and again constantly while quoting it without a purpose. There is purpose in what Ann-Marie has written in this excerpt from the book. Hurt, heaviness and hate was the goal of this passage. She intended to cause her audience to be appalled, abashed, and abhorred. Not only was she genius in doing so, but she included a response in which her character "Frances" has comforted her watchful sister after the incident. This response, in which a 6 year old has assured to her slightly older sister, was well composed to cause heartbreak in her audience.

"I keep looking at each other until he falls asleep like that, then she crawls out from behind his arms and walks over to me.
'It doesn't hurt', she says." - pg. 376

The author, Ann-Marie Macdonald has obviously put a lot of thought in this novel. Palpably enough, it is blatant that Ann-Marie has been careful to select the right words, and combine them together to create the impact she has intended it to be. If put into a symbolic image, Fall On Your Knees is like an immaculate white house. It shines, and sparkles. But everyone that passes by it does not feel the innocence the house is supposed to hold present. And if one dares to enter, they find that the white house is not as immaculate as it imitates itself to be. Instead, past the sturdy bricks of white, you see that the paint is peeling off, and inside the house it is nothing but dusty and bloody. There are no people, but it is not empty; it is haunted.

Fall on your Knees is one of the stand-out books of the last few years. Fresh but savvy in its approach, MacDonald gives us a model to understand the Canadian mental landscape by. We are by turns uplifted, humbled, and strengthened through our journey with the Pipers. MacDonald has already delighted us with her Goodnight Desdemona, Good morning Juliet, and with Fall on Your Knees, she's set her sights on joining other great Canadian luminaries, such as Robertson Davies. Like Davies' works, MacDonald doesn't sacrifice the primacy of story-telling to style. Fall on Your Knees is going to stand as a landmark novel, an important translation of who we are, culled from who we used to be.