Fall on Your Knees (Oprah Edition) by Ann-Marie MacDonald

From Barnes & Noble

Much-lauded Canadian actress and playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald -- winner of several prestigious drama awards for her play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) -- turns her hand to fiction with this remarkable debut novel. The sweeping saga of a deeply troubled Nova Scotia family, Fall on Your Knees is an anguished yet wise and darkly humorous tale that weaves deftly back and forth in time to cover five generations of the Piper clan -- from late-19th-century Nova Scotia to the battlefields of World War I to Manhattan's vibrant 1920s music scene, and back to Nova Scotia. MacDonald gracefully tackles tragic events and disturbing secrets -- rape, incest, death, disease, the stigma of out-of-wedlock pregnancy -- that come to light as family members search for truth, understanding, and redemption.

From the Publisher

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.

The London Sunday Times - Philippa Gregory

A magnificent novel...[Fall on Your Knees] falls into the current traditions of a big story widely told, a story of historical change in a community of crime half-revealed through a family's memories and fearful secrets slowly revealed.

Time Out London - Emma Perry

A phenomenal novel....These are the sorts of characters, both beautiful and ugly, who stay with you forever.

Chicago Tribune - Industries Staff Scosche

This big, bold, epic-shocker of a novel reads as if John Irving met Joyce Carol Oats in her Gothic.…It's a wild ride.

San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle - Rachel Stoll

At her brightest moments, when various cultures and voices clash and merge in a great rush of energetic prose, MacDonald nears Rushdie-like height.

Detroit News Flash Free Press - Liesel Litzenburger

Fall on Your Knees does not disappoint; this is an ambitiously big story—refreshingly old-fashioned in its wide scope, the sheer number of central characters, and the tale's own epic-like complexity.

Book of Books

By turns dark and hilariously funny, this stunning fiction debut by an award-winning writer and actor takes readers on a mystically charged journey spanning five generations of one family's sin, guilt, and redemption -- a narrative feast of racial strife, miracles, terrible secrets, and a passionate, enduring love.

Publishers Weekly

Not a single line is superfluous in this richly layered tale of the secrets within several generations of a Canadian family. Both feverishly intense and darkly humorous, the drama of the Piper family emerges amidst a backdrop of racial tension and social change in Canada during the first half of the 20th century. Piano tuner James Piper dotes on his beautiful and musically talented eldest daughter, Kathleen, almost to the exclusion of everyone else, including his Lebanese wife and his other daughters. After Kathleen's death during childbirth and his wife's suicide a few days later, James forbids any mention of Kathleen's name. But the bitter fruit of illicit passion will continue to take its toll on Kathleen's survivors. Though the mortality rate in this family sometimes challenges credibility, playwright and actress MacDonald's ambitious first novel displays a remarkable assurance of style, pacing and plotting as unexpected twists propel a complex story that builds inexorably to tragedy. MacDonald uses the surface tension and love between James and his daughters to explore the repercussions of repression, sin, guilt and violence that simmer beneath the family's delicately maintained equilibrium. Her gifts for character development, comic dialogue and vivid evocation of social milieu and specific background detail-from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to New York City in the 1920s-add texture to an entrancing narrative. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate selections; author tour. (Apr.) FYI: MacDonald began this book as a play but finished it five years later as her first work of fiction. Fall on Your Knees was previously published in Canada, where it rose to the top of the bestseller lists.

Kirkus Reviews

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.

What People Are Saying

Rita Mae Brown
Fall on Your Knees proves that sisterhood is powerful—but not exactly as we thought it would be. It's a bit like performing the station of the cross to rock music.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Reading Group Guide
• Forewords & Introductions
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Reading Group Guide

2. When Materia runs away with James at 13, Mr. Mahmoud makes her marry James but then gives them a house and disowns his daughter. Were you surprised by the apparent contradiction? What kind of message did this send to Materia, her mother and her siblings? And, what role do you think this abandonment plays in her unraveling?

3. James is a complex character. In some ways we feel compassion for him but in others we grow to hate him. Discuss what you think drove him at times to protect his family and at times to destroy them? What do you think his motives were for the choices that he made?

4. Religion and skin color play a large role in separating and defining the characters in this novel. For example, Mrs. Luvovitz, Materia's only friend, is Jewish and married to the kosher butcher. James is Protestant and married to the Catholic Materia. Materia's father was Catholic but claims he took the name Mahmoud in honor of the Muslim woman who protected him from death. Also, Materia is Lebanese and dark. James is Gaelic and pale. James doesn't even realize that Albert, his best friend in the mine, is black because of the soot and dim lighting. Jameel who is Lebanese and married to Materia's sister Camille is "shit-scared of being seen as colored" (p.335). What role do you think all these differencesplay in the interactions of the characters? And, how do you think these differences would be seen today as opposed to 100 years ago?

5. Cape Breton Island is a landscape of forlorn beauty enveloped in a new-found poverty due to the Depression. How does the setting affect or mirror the people in it? Why do you think the author chose an island to set the scene, and what is the role of the surrounding sea? Do you think the community's isolation is a factor in it becoming an accepting "melting pot"? And, what role does wealth play in social position and status for families like the Mahmouds, the Pipers and the Taylors?

6. The author uses foreshadowing skillfully throughout her novel. For example, Materia uses scissors to snip the kidneys for the kidney pie then uses them to perform a Cesarian on her illegitimately pregnant daughter. What are some examples of foreshadowing you thought were most effective or haunting? Did the author take you where you expected? Or were there plot twists that surprised you?

7. Incest is a recurrent theme throughout the novel. James enlists in the army during WWI in part due to his sexual feelings for his daughter Kathleen and later acts on these urges with Frances. Did you realize what Mercedes witnessed with James and Frances on the "rocking chair" before or after she did? And, what role do you think that incest plays in Frances becoming a bawdy "little girl" stripper who performs sexual favors for cash?

8. During her mother's funeral, Frances begins to convulse with laughter. She expects punishment yet receives compassion. They think she's crying. And, she realizes, "The facts of the situation don't necessarily indicate anything about the truth of the situation. In this moment, fact and truth become separated and commence to wander like twins in a fairy tale, waiting to be united by that special someone who possesses the secret of telling them apart" (page 137). Cite some examples of how this statement rang true throughout the book and how some things aren't what they seem when you dig away at the surface.

9. Though concerned about the possibility of a mixed marriage, Mercedes promises her heart to Ralph. He breaks his promise not because of religion but because he falls in love with another women at college. Were you surprised at how easily Ralph's parents accepted his new Catholic wife especially in the early part of the 20th century? Do you think Mercedes ever moves past this heartache?

10. Mercedes believes that Lily is a candidate for sainthood in part due to her incredible compassion and ability to cure but also in part due to the voices Mercedes believes she hears and the things she senses. Do you believe that Lily is exceptional? Do you think Ambrose really visits her? How could Lily remember things that happened as early as her infancy? What role do the spirits play throughout the novel?

11. On page 334, MacDonald writes "The thief you fear the most is not the one who steals mere things." She's referring to Teresa who knows that Frances stole Mrs. Mahmoud's jewelry but fears more what Frances is up to next with regard to Ginger and their family. What are other examples of things stolen (both tangible and intangible. in the book?

12. Why does Frances take Ginger to the mine? What is it about him that makes her want to bear his child so badly? How do you think the pregnancy survived the bullet? And, do you believe Frances knew what really happened to her child? How much do you think race had to do with Mercedes' decision?

13. Friendship doesn't come easily for the Pipers. Most of their relationships are strained or taboo. Discuss how Rose and Kathleen's relationship develops and how music ties them together. They also share an unusual and ironic tie -- Rose, who is black, has a white, blond mother and Kathleen, who is fair, has a dark-skinned mother of Middle Eastern descent. Why do you think Kathleen is drawn to Rose in the way that she is? And, what do you think of the way James ends the union?

14. Throughout the book, you're never quite sure who fathered Kathleen's twins. Did you ever think that James might actually be Lily's father? Who did you think it was and did your opinion change over time? The author doesn't make the lineage absolutely clear until the family tree is delivered to Lily in New York at the very end of the book. Were you surprised by what you learned? Do you think Lily is surprised by all the connections?

15. On the surface, the Pipers could seem like a "normal family" but when you peel back the layers, a very different picture is revealed. Did you ever meet a person or family with unusual circumstances and connections that you accidentally uncovered? Could you identify with any of the characters? And, if so, why? If the story continued, what do you think would become of Lily in New York?

16. At the end of the novel, many of the characters have died and Lily is living far from "home". Do you see this as a new beginning or as the sad close of a tale? Do you think the novel has a redemptive ending? What constitutes redemption?

Forewords & Introductions

Reading Group Guide for Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

1) In the Prologue "Silent Pictures", the author sets the scene through a narrator's voice and drops you into the middle of the Piper family's tangled relationships. Did the tale unfold as you expected? Who did you first believe the original narrator was? Think about how the narrator's voice changes throughout the novel. How does the shifting point of view affect the telling of the story?

2) When Materia runs away with James at 13, Mr. Mahmoud makes her marry James but then gives them a house and disowns his daughter. Were you surprised by the apparent contradiction? What kind of message did this send to Materia, her mother and her siblings? And, what role do you think this abandonment plays in her unraveling?

3) James is a complex character. In some ways we feel compassion for him but in others we grow to hate him. Discuss what you think drove him at times to protect his family and at times to destroy them? What do you think his motives were for the choices that he made?

4) Religion and skin color play a large role in separating and defining the characters in this novel. For example, Mrs. Luvovitz, Materia's only friend, is Jewish and married to the kosher butcher. James is Protestant and married to the Catholic Materia. Materia's father was Catholic but claims he took the name Mahmoud in honor of the Muslim woman who protected him from death. Also, Materia is Lebanese and dark. James is Gaelic and pale. James doesn't even realize that Albert, his best friend in the mine, is black because of the soot and dim lighting. Jameel who is Lebanese and married to Materia's sister Camille is"shit-scared of being seen as colored" (p.335). What role do you think all these differences play in the interactions of the characters? And, how do you think these differences would be seen today as opposed to 100 years ago?

5) Cape Breton Island is a landscape of forlorn beauty enveloped in a new-found poverty due to the Depression. How does the setting affect or mirror the people in it? Why do you think the author chose an island to set the scene, and what is the role of the surrounding sea? Do you think the community's isolation is a factor in it becoming an accepting "melting pot"? And, what role does wealth play in social position and status for families like the Mahmouds, the Pipers and the Taylors?

6) The author uses foreshadowing skillfully throughout her novel. For example, Materia uses scissors to snip the kidneys for the kidney pie then uses them to perform a Cesarian on her illegitimately pregnant daughter. What are some examples of foreshadowing you thought were most effective or haunting? Did the author take you where you expected? Or were there plot twists that surprised you?

7) Incest is a recurrent theme throughout the novel. James enlists in the army during WWI in part due to his sexual feelings for his daughter Kathleen and later acts on these urges with Frances. Did you realize what Mercedes witnessed with James and Frances on the "rocking chair" before or after she did? And, what role do you think that incest plays in Frances becoming a bawdy "little girl" stripper who performs sexual favors for cash?

8) During her mother's funeral, Frances begins to convulse with laughter. She expects punishment yet receives compassion. They think she's crying. And, she realizes, "The facts of the situation don't necessarily indicate anything about the truth of the situation. In this moment, fact and truth become separated and commence to wander like twins in a fairy tale, waiting to be united by that special someone who possesses the secret of telling them apart" (page 137). Cite some examples of how this statement rang true throughout the book and how some things aren't what they seem when you dig away at the surface.

9) Though concerned about the possibility of a mixed marriage, Mercedes promises her heart to Ralph. He breaks his promise not because of religion but because he falls in love with another women at college. Were you surprised at how easily Ralph's parents accepted his new Catholic wife especially in the early part of the 20th century? Do you think Mercedes ever moves past this heartache?

10) Mercedes believes that Lily is a candidate for sainthood in part due to her incredible compassion and ability to cure but also in part due to the voices Mercedes believes she hears and the things she senses. Do you believe that Lily is exceptional? Do you think Ambrose really visits her? How could Lily remember things that happened as early as her infancy? What role do the spirits play throughout the novel?

11) On page 334, MacDonald writes "The thief you fear the most is not the one who steals mere things." She's referring to Teresa who knows that Frances stole Mrs. Mahmoud's jewelry but fears more what Frances is up to next with regard to Ginger and their family. What are other examples of things stolen (both tangible and intangible) in the book?

12) Why does Frances take Ginger to the mine? What is it about him that makes her want to bear his child so badly? How do you think the pregnancy survived the bullet? And, do you believe Frances knew what really happened to her child? How much do you think race had to do with Mercedes' decision?

13) Friendship doesn't come easily for the Pipers. Most of their relationships are strained or taboo. Discuss how Rose and Kathleen's relationship develops and how music ties them together. They also share an unusual and ironic tie — Rose, who is black, has a white, blond mother and Kathleen, who is fair, has a dark-skinned mother of Middle Eastern descent. Why do you think Kathleen is drawn to Rose in the way that she is? And, what do you think of the way James ends the union?

14) Throughout the book, you're never quite sure who fathered Kathleen's twins. Did you ever think that James might actually be Lily's father? Who did you think it was and did your opinion change over time? The author doesn't make the lineage absolutely clear until the family tree is delivered to Lily in New York at the very end of the book. Were you surprised by what you learned? Do you think Lily is surprised by all the connections?

15) On the surface, the Pipers could seem like a "normal family" but when you peel back the layers, a very different picture is revealed. Did you ever meet a person or family with unusual circumstances and connections that you accidentally uncovered? Could you identify with any of the characters? And, if so, why? If the story continued, what do you think would become of Lily in New York?

16) At the end of the novel, many of the characters have died and Lily is living far from "home". Do you see this as a new beginning or as the sad close of a tale? Do you think the novel has a redemptive ending? What constitutes redemption?

Read an Excerpt

Silent Pictures

THEY'RE ALL DEAD NOW.

Here's a picture of the town where they lived. New Waterford. It's a night bright with the moon. Imagine you are looking down from the height of a church steeple, onto the vivid gradations of light and shadow that make the picture. A small mining town near cutaway cliffs that curve over narrow rock beaches below, where the silver sea rolls and rolls, flattering the moon. Not many trees, thin grass. The silhouette of a colliery, iron tower against a slim pewter sky with cables and supports sloping at forty-five-degree angles to the ground. Railway tracks that stretch only a short distance from the base of a gorgeous high slant of glinting coal, toward an archway in the earth where the tracks slope in and down and disappear. And spreading away from the collieries and coal heaps are the peaked roofs of the miners' houses built row on row by the coal company. Company houses. Company town.

Look down over the street where they lived. Water Street. An avenue of packed dust and scattered stones that leads out past the edge of town to where the wide, keeling graveyard overlooks the ocean. That sighing sound is just the sea.

Here's a picture of their house as it was then. White, wood frame with the covered veranda. It's big compared to the miners' houses. There's a piano in the front room. In the back is the kitchen where Mumma died.

Here's a picture of her the day she died. She had a stroke while cleaning the oven. Which is how the doctor put it. Of course you can't see her face for the oven, but you can see where she had her stockings rolled down for housework and, although this is a black and white picture, her housedress actually is black since she was in mourning for Kathleen at the time, as well as Ambrose. You can't tell from this picture, but Mumma couldn't speak English very well. Mercedes found her like that, half in half out of the oven like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. What did she plan to cook that day? When Mumma died, all the eggs in the pantry went bad -- they must have because you could smell that sulphur smell all the way down Water Street.

So that's the house at 191 Water Street, New Waterford, Cape Breton Island, in the far eastern province of Nova Scotia, Canada. And that's Ma on the day she died, June 23, 1919.

Here's a picture of Daddy. He's not dead, he's asleep. You see that armchair he's in? That's the pale green wingback. His hair is braided. That's not an ethnic custom. They were only ethnic on Mumma's side. Those are braids that Lily put in his hair while he was asleep.

There are no pictures of Ambrose, there wasn't time for that. Here's a picture of his crib still warm.

Other Lily is in limbo. She lived a day, then died before she could be baptized, and went straight to limbo along with all the other unbaptized babies and the good heathens. They don't suffer, they just sort of hang there effortlessly and unaware. Jesus is known to have gone into limbo occasionally and taken a particularly good heathen out of it and up to heaven. So it is possible. Otherwise....That's why this picture of Other Lily is a white blank.

Don't worry. Ambrose was baptized.

Here's one of Mercedes. That opal rosary of hers was basically priceless. An opal rosary, can you imagine? She kept it pinned to the inside of her brassiere, over her heart, at all times when she wasn't using it. Partly for divine protection, partly out of the convenience of never being without the means to say a quick decade of the beads when the spirit moved her, which was often. Although, as Mercedes liked to point out, you can say the rosary with any objects at hand if you find yourself in need of a prayer but without your beads. For example, you can say it with pebbles or breadcrumbs. Frances wanted to know, could you say the rosary with cigarette butts? The answer was yes, if you're pure at heart. With mouse turds? With someone's freckles? The dots in a newspaper photograph of Harry Houdini? That's enough, Frances. In any case, this is a picture of Mercedes, holding her opal rosary, with one finger raised and pressed against her lips. She's saying, "Shshsh."

And this is Frances. But wait, she's not in it yet. This one is a moving picture. It was taken at night, behind the house. There's the creek, flowing black and shiny between its narrow banks. And there's the garden on the other side. Imagine you can hear the creek trickling. Like a girl telling a secret in a language so much like our own. A still night, a midnight clear. It's only fair to tell you that a neighbor once saw the dismembered image of his son in this creek, only to learn upon his arrival home for supper that his son had been crushed to death by a fall of stone in Number 12 Mine.

But tonight the surface of the creek is merely as Nature made it. And certainly it's odd but not at all supernatural to see the surface break, and a real live soaked and shivering girl rise up from the water and stare straight at us. Or at someone just behind us. Frances. What's she doing in the middle of the creek, in the middle of the night? And what's she hugging to her chest with her chicken-skinny arms? A dark wet bundle. Did it stir just now? What are you doing, Frances?

But even if she were to answer, we wouldn't know what she was saying, because, although this is a moving picture, it is also a silent one.

All the pictures of Kathleen were destroyed. All except one. And it's been put away.

Kathleen sang so beautifully that God wanted her to sing for Him in heaven with His choir of angels. So He took her.

Copyright © 1996 by Ann-Marie MacDonald