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 skillful manipulation of prose, MacDonald teases out clues, secrets, and revelations that are both delightful to discover and disturbing to consider. --Jonathan Dewar
I loved this book almost to the end but felt it wandered when it lapsed into Kathleen's diary. I became impatient rather than feeling informed...it could have been condensed and still worked well. Yes it filled in the 'why' of so many happenings in the book but it felt like a stumble in my page turning flow. The ending felt a little rushed as if the author just wanted to tie it up rather than letting me savour the finish as much as the beginning.
There were times when it could have slipped into pure afternoon soap opera but the MacDonald side slipped it neatly thanks to her writing skill and not allowing the plot to get predicable .
Lots of great sentences to linger over: "Surely truth can be borrowed across time without perishing. Shelf life so to speak.
" .....to see him as a tousled little boy. He jerks to a sitting position, where he finds his headache waiting for him. It tightens over his scalp and he ages the forty years back to reality.
This novel is several years old and only came to my attention thanks to Canada Reads .
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