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Fall on Your Knees

ann-marie macdonald

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They are the Pipers of Cape Breton Island — a family steeped in lies and unspoken truths that reach out from the past, forever mindful of the tragic secret that could shatter the family to its foundations. Chronicling five generations of this eccentric clan, Fall on Your Knees follows four remarkable sisters whose lives are filled with driving ambition, inescapable family bonds, and forbidden love. Their experiences will take them from their stormswept homeland, across the battlefields of World War I, to the freedom and independence of Jazz-era New York City.

Compellingly written, running the literary gamut from menacingly dark to hilariously funny, this is an epic saga of one family’s trials and triumphs in a world of sin, guilt, and redemption.

672 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1,1996
Literary awards
orange prize, scotiabank giller prize, canadian booksellers association libris award, commonwealth writers prize, canadian authors association award, the publishing triangle award, 
Places
cape breton island nova scotia, nova scotia, canada, 

This edition

Format
672 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
October 29, 2002 by Pocket
ISBN
9780743466523
ASIN
0743466527
Language
English
Characters More characters

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ann-marie macdonald

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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
32(32%)
4 stars
29(29%)
3 stars
39(39%)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
chiXcookie
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A very unusual and convoluted story about the Piper family living on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. This book is not for the faint of heart as the themes are very adult and troubling. It is a sweeping family saga beginning in 1898 and ending in the mid 1950’s. This novel will take your breath away.
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Marvln
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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It took me 5 months to read this book but in the end I still didn’t want it to end. It was much darker than I thought and in took me on a roller coaster if emotions.
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Emmury
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book left me wanting to slash my wrists-- especially when I think about the time I spent reading it that I can never get back.

Many people loved this book. I am not one of them. The characters are shallow,self-involved and just plain crazy and while I realize that this is just like the people you meet in your everyday I life, it doesn't necessarily mean I want to read about them unless they are delivered in a well-written story that makes them shine a little. This is not that kind of story.

Reading this book (and I persisted because I am an open-minded reader) was like trudging through mud. And as open-minded as I am, I just could not take the rather graphic descriptions of molestation and incest. Ms. MacDonald, some times less is more.

About 100 pages before the end I was ready to quit. I'd had all I could take of the simpering, whining, craziness and frequent spinelessness of the Piper family. I only kept reading because I was actually interested in the story of what happened to Kathleen in New York.
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beecorrea
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A rich,complex, twisted story. The novel follows the saga of four sisters and moves from turn-of the-century Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to the European battlefields of WWI to New York in the Jazz Age. It is rife with intrigue, passion, betrayal, guilt, rage, heartbreak, and redemption. The detail of period and setting is amazing, the plot is sweeping and dramatic yet painfully intimate. It is not for the faint-of-heart, but if you love well-researched, unsentimental historical drama, this will draw you in and not let you go until the last page.
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SeaLiquid
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is a novel set in a coal mining community in Canada and spans from before World War I, through the roaring 20s, and the great depression, as it follows the story of the Piper family.

It follows the characters of James Piper as he marries his child bride Materia, who comes from a conservative Catholic Lebonese family, and due to the scandal of their marriage, is disinherited. They start to have children, and then everything starts to get twisted. It appears that Mr Piper has way too much of a liking for young girls, and especially one of his own daughters.

The book covers many dark themes: statutory rape, rape, suicide, incest, depression, prostitution.

But, even besides all of the above, I actually found myself to be bored while reading this. I really wanted to start skim reading at one point, and then really contemplated giving up on it altogether. But I did push through, and it was an intriguing story, just not something that really gripped me.
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CommanderSheep
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book reminded me of a grown-up VC Andrews, except you can read it on the subway without feeling like a pervy 12 year-old. Very Gothic at times and the crazy family drama had me reading non-stop, despite all the main characters being unlikeable assholes in one way or another. One thing that bugged me was that some of the writing didn't seem historically accurate. Did people in the 1920s really say "barf?" Maybe they did, I don't know. Regardless, I couldn't put this down and I blew through it in a couple days.
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sp4ce1
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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One of my all-time favourite books. I read this book for review way back in 1996 before it was officially released (I couldn't find the cover of the original hardcover edition to review, so I'm just using this one). Ann-Marie MacDonald has the most extraordinary way with language. My chest hurt, my heart ached, I was awed by the scenes she created and the reactions they invoked in me. And she still managed to make me laugh out loud throughout the book. MacDonald is one of my favourite writers, and I will never forget the impact this book had on me. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
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nemowsz
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Okay - this is the second "Oprah's Book Club" book that I've read and, like DROWNING RUTH(Christina Schwartz), I disliked the story due to the disturbingly depressing plot. In DROWNING RUTH, the whole idea of a mentally-ill and controlling aunt (Amanda) ruining the life of her little niece (Ruth) after the girl's mother (Mathilda) mysteriously fell through the ice and drowned one cold winter eve was merely depressing; in FALL ON YOUR KNEES, however,the pervading theme of incest was more than distressing, it was just downright gross (and this is from an open-minded reader NOT easily shocked or bothered by sexual content!) Although I am always interested in reading books that deal with sensitive and even shocking topics (sometimes this makes a book more interesting!), I just don't find a need to experience incest in such poetic prose!

There's one thing I don't get - in the description on the back cover, the story is called "menacingly dark and hilariously funny" and it is also called "darkly humorous". Maybe I'm missing something or perhaps I'm not sophisticated enough, but I just don't see any humor at all in this distressing tale - and, like I said, I'm a very open-minded reader!
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