However, he guilt trips and verbally berates his Lebanese wife Materia as well as rapes two of his daughters. James Piper – the patriarch – wants to take care of his children in the best way possible despite growing up in an abusive environment. In addition, MacDonald makes it clear that many of the characters are flawed one way or another. It doesn’t help that many of the Pipers either make up stories about the past or avoid entirely. And for Lily, she has visions from God and wants to know the truth behind her birth.
She too is held back by providing for her dad and sisters through unconventional means. For Frances, she yearns for a life outside the box, even if that means becoming a prostitute and performing striptease at a speakeasy. For Mercedes, she yearns to go to college and marry the boy she loves, yet taking care of her family was always going to be a top priority, and their reputation in the community was less than stellar. For Kathleen, she wants to sing to thousands, but while receiving voice lessons in New York City, she falls in love with the piano accompanist, and things go awry (but not in the way you think). They all want a better life, but something gets in their way. At the same time, it’s the characters that drew me in. Yes, it has elements like the aforementioned incest, mental wellness, homosexuality, suicide, gender equality in relationships, sadistic vengeance, domestic abuse, and racial tension. Luckily, it didn’t turn out to be that way for the most part. My next thought was “Oh no, is this going to be 500 pages of one disturbing thing after another?” And then, I discovered that it was over 500 pages long.
I thought I was going to have a reaction similar to the characters in South Park reading The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs. It was pretty explicit since it talked about incest in the very first sentence. I first read a plot description of this novel on my library’s catalog page. Their journeys take them from their homeland to the freedom that lies in New York City. It specifically follows the four sisters – Kathleen, Mercedes, Frances, and Lily whose lives are filled with ambition, inescapable family bonds, and forbidden love.
They are steeped in lies and unspoken truths and are forever conscious of the tragic secret that could tear the family apart. Let’s take a look at the 1996 book Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald – a novel that I liked once I got past the disturbing elements.įall on Your Knees follows five generations of the Piper family of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia in the early twentieth century. Whether or not they achieve long-term success depends on the plot, characters, and the writing itself. They stuff in many things that mainstream society deems as (mostly) taboo in order to get a reaction out of readers. There are certain books that are designed to shock people. Content warning: this review discusses sexual assault.
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