Fall On Your Knees (Oprah's Book Club) - Softcover

MacDonald, Ann-Marie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743237188 ISBN 13: 9780743237185

Publisher: Scribner, 2002

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review

A sprawling saga about five generations of a family from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Fall on Your Knees is the impressive first fiction from Canadian playwright and actor Ann-Marie MacDonald. This epic tale of family history, family secrets, and music centers on four sisters and their relationships with each other and with their father. Set in the coal-mining communities of Nova Scotia in the early part of this century, the story also shifts to the battlefields of World War I and the jazz scene of New York City in the 1920s.

From the Back Cover

"Magnetic… a dizzying leap into a mind so rich and complex you spend almost as much time marvelling how she got there as enjoying the results… Compelling and original… MacDonald succeeds brilliantly in building a world that, at least for the satisfying length of time it takes to finish Fall On Your Knees, gloriously supersedes all else." -- Financial Post

"Beautiful… this big, bold, epic shocker of a novel reads as if John Irving met Joyce Carol Oates. It is history told with a thumping, complex narrative… a host of colourful characters and a great big bow to psychology… Fall On Your Knees is the work of a big talent. It's a wild ride." -- Chicago Tribune

"[MacDonald is] a first-rate novelist.... [She] paints a Cape Breton landscape steeped in human emotion ... She has found the language of the heart that runs below everyday discourse.... There is no resisting this story." -- The Globe and Mail

"Ann-Marie MacDonald -- one of Canada's most talented actors and playwrights -- has provided us with yet another aspect of a talent that has no limits." -- Timothy Findley

"Brilliant... Profoundly and refreshingly different.... MacDonald has constructed a plot worthy of Victor Hugo... A standout." -- Vancouver Sun

"MacDonald is a master of exciting story-telling, of suspense and surprise." -- The Montreal Gazette

"... a narrative presence that can look at the unbearable, and sustain the emotion of it, and deliver it up edged in mordant wit." -- EDITOR'S CHOICE, Notable Books of 1996, The Globe and Mail

"... a multi-generational saga ... carried off with great assurance and style." -- Philip Marchand, CRITIC'S CHOICE, The Toronto Star

"... utterly compelling -- a brilliant take on the black themes of racism, physical and emotional battery, sexual abuse, suicide, and murder." -- The Vancouver Review

"Stunning...The book and the talent behind it are big. The story is riveting, the characters achingly human, and the writing will take your breath away...[MacDonald] has leapt into the first rank of fiction writers." -- Toronto Star

"A delicious story, one of those sweeping family sagas to take on summer vacation and savor.... MacDonald is a master of exciting story-telling, of suspense and surprise. She has a dramatic touch that can elicit gasps from readers." -- Montreal Gazette

"Not a single line is superfluous in this richly layered tale of the secrets within several generations of a Canadian family." -- Publisher's Weekly starred review February 24th, 1997

"Here is an explosive mix of family feuds and incest, musical dreams and melodrama, all shot through with a fierce guilt... Fall On Your Knees is a heady, haunting brew, carefully structured, witty and distinctive." -- The London Observer

"Some wonderful writing has come out of Canada in recent years from such authors as Robertson Davies and Margaret Atwood. Now they are joined by the multi-talented Ann-Marie MacDonald... She is already a successful actress & playwright. It seems almost unfair that she should have written a brilliant first novel." -- Sunday Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743237188
• ISBN 13: 9780743237185
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 512