Fall on Your Knees
Encyclopedia
Fall on Your Knees is a novel
by Canadian
playwright
, actor
and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald
. The novel takes place in late 19th and early 20th centuries and chronicles four generations of the complex Piper Family. It is a story of "inescapable family bonds, terrible secrets, and of miracles". Beginning in Cape Breton Island
, Nova Scotia
through the battlefields of World War I
and ending in New York City
, the troubled Piper sisters depend on one another for survival, at the hands of their dangerous father. The title was taken from the text of the popular Christmas song "O Holy Night
." Fall on Your Knees was published by Knopf Canada in 1996
and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and was also a part of Oprah Winfrey
's book club in 2002
. It has been translated in to 17 languages.
to find a new place to live. Working as a piano tuner, he meets and eventually elopes with 13-year-old Materia Mahmoud, much to the anger of her wealthy, traditional Lebanese parents. James, madly obsessed with Materia, impregnates her, and then becomes increasingly frustrated and confused by her resulting strange behavior. Materia gives birth to their first daughter, Kathleen, and James subsequently becomes disgusted with his once intriguing wife, finally realizing that he actually married "a child". Materia regrets marrying James, and does not take to the child, as she believes her daughter's relationship with James to be revolting. James, however, is swollen with pride over his beautiful daughter, and spends his time ignoring and neglecting Materia while spoiling and smothering Kathleen. Through the eyes of James, his life is perfect, aside from his wife. According to the town folk, however, something appears to be seriously wrong with the Piper family. Materia is taken in by the kind neighbor Mrs. Luvovitz, who teaches her to sew and cook. Materia misses her old life and her family who have since disowned her. She grows to hate James and their daughter Kathleen.
Though his fixation on his eldest daughter is all encompassing, James eventually impregnates Materia three more times in quick succession. She gives birth to three girls, Mercedes, Frances and Lily, only to have newborn Lily die a crib death shortly after. She is from here on in the novel referred to as "The Other Lily". The novel then explores the girls' relationship with their troubled father; their secretive, silent mother; and friendships that grow between them as they try to figure out their family's strange and mysterious history. As Kathleen grows older, she is perceived by her schoolmates as snobby, and they turn against her. Her father James is her only friend, and when he travels off to war, Kathleen is crushed. James, however, knows that he must leave Kathleen, as he has found himself increasingly attracted to her sexually. To him, enlisting is a way of beating "the devil."
Kathleen befriends her younger sisters, and James later returns as a shadow of his former self. Still, he feels an attraction to his eldest daughter, and he sends her to New York City
to train with a highly-regarded but challenging voice instructor and to fulfill her dream of becoming an opera singer at the Metropolitan Opera House. During her absence, James receives a letter from an "Anonymous Well-Wisher" suggesting that Kathleen may have gotten into trouble in New York. He immediately fetches her from New York, bringing her home where it becomes apparent that she is pregnant. Kathleen spends her pregnancy hidden in her family home, but eventually dies during childbirth, though her mother manages to save her twin children, a boy and a girl, by performing a emergency caesarian section. Influenced by her mother's increasing devotion to Catholicism, Kathleen's younger sister Frances believes the babies must be baptized, and so attempts to do so in the creek behind the house the night of their birth. James catches her, and believes she is trying to drown them. He drags her away and the male twin, named Ambrose by Frances, is accidentally left to drown in the creek. The female twin, Lily, contracts polio from the contaminated water in the creek, but survives the disease by what Mercedes attributes to a miracle. Mercedes, Frances and Lily are all raised to believe Materia is Lily's mother. When the accidental suicide of the grieving Materia shatters the world of the remaining Piper sisters, they come to depend on one another for survival. The development of the sisters — Kathleen, the promising diva; Mercedes, the caretaker; Frances, the mischievous one; and disabled Lily, the innocent one — forms the heart of the novel as they all bear the burden of their tragically flawed father.
Frances, beaten, molested and disowned by her father, causes trouble in school, eventually getting herself expelled, despite Mercedes' best efforts to keep her in check. Frances finds solace in her dolls, matinee movies, her late mother's old hope chest, and her darling younger sister Lily. Frances eventually runs away in the middle of the night, ends up in a beaten down pub run by her Lebanese uncle, and becomes the pub's entertainment and pint-sized whore. She says she does it to save money for Lily, but Frances is unsure as to what exactly she is saving for. She discovers her long-lost grandfathers house, and then becomes obsessed with his African maid, Theresa. Frances stalks and seduces Theresa's brother, Leo, and becomes impregnated by him, after she has saved enough money for Lily and is ready to stop working. She dreams of becoming a mother to a black child. Slowly over the course of her life, Frances remembers in bits and pieces the truth about her father, mother, sisters and her drowned brother/nephew.
Lily is crippled, one of her legs being smaller than the other, and she wears a leather brace. She loves Frances the most of everyone, and was raised to believe Materia and James were her parents, although Frances liked to tell her otherwise. Lily believes everything Frances tells her, and so believes Ambrose is her guardian angel, and often wished for him to protect Frances after she left the house in the middle of the night. Lily said Ambrose lived in the creek, and he came to her in her dreams. Lily led Mercedes to the spot where Frances seduced Leo Taylor, and Mercedes believed that Lily was a saint. Mercedes spends her time praying, taking care of the family and working hard at school. She eventually becomes a teacher.
Kathleen's diary and old dress is eventually sent home by her caretaker in New York, and after Frances reads it, sends it with Lily to New York, to find Kathleen's lover. Through the pages of her diary as Lily reads, we learn of Kathleen's vocal lessons, her instructor she calls the Kaiser, and her illicit love affair with the female black piano accompanist, Rose Lacroix. The romance is a whirlwind, as both women fall madly in love with one another, going to Jazz bars with Rose dressed as a man. Kathleen thrives, and basks in her complete happiness. The world is their oyster, until James barges into Kathleen's apartment one day to find her in bed with the black woman. A furious attack on Rose leads to James' jealous rape of Kathleen, as his sexual desire for her finally overcomes him. This reveals Lily's true mother, and James brings Kathleen home to Cape Breton, where she then dies in childbirth, her dreams shattered and her short and gloriously promising life cut terribly short. James eventually confesses everything to Frances, after her child, Aloysius, is pronounced dead and she becomes depressed. James eventually dies in his reading chair, peacefully, and Frances finally reveals the family's darkest secrets to her sister Mercedes, who is firmly in denial. Frances dies as an elderly woman with the help of Mercedes, without ever knowing the actual fate of her child.
The novel ends in New York, as Lily makes her way across North America to Rose's apartment, where the ghostly return of her lover's doppleganger child pushes her over the edge. The two form a friendship and live together for many years, eventually to be visited by a young black man called Anthony, bearing a gift from Mercedes Piper. He delivers a drawing of a family tree, made by Mercedes, finally revealing all the incest, illegitimate children, crib deaths and affairs that make up the Piper family. Anthony is revealed to be Frances' long-lost son Aloysius, and Lily sits him down to tell him all about his mother.
http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780394281780
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald
Ann-Marie MacDonald
Ann-Marie MacDonald is a Canadian playwright, novelist, actor and broadcast journalist who lives in Toronto, Ontario. The daughter of a member of Canada's military, she was born at an air force base near Baden-Baden, West Germany....
. The novel takes place in late 19th and early 20th centuries and chronicles four generations of the complex Piper Family. It is a story of "inescapable family bonds, terrible secrets, and of miracles". Beginning in Cape Breton Island
Cape Breton Island
Cape Breton Island is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America. It likely corresponds to the word Breton, the French demonym for Brittany....
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
through the battlefields of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and ending in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the troubled Piper sisters depend on one another for survival, at the hands of their dangerous father. The title was taken from the text of the popular Christmas song "O Holy Night
O Holy Night
"O Holy Night" is a well-known Christmas carol composed by Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the French poem "Minuit, chrétiens" by Placide Cappeau , a wine merchant and poet, who had been asked by a parish priest to write a Christmas poem...
." Fall on Your Knees was published by Knopf Canada in 1996
1996 in literature
The year 1996 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is removed from an advanced placement English reading list in Lindale, Texas because it "conflicted with the values of the community."* In the United Kingdom, the first...
and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and was also a part of Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
's book club in 2002
2002 in literature
The year 2002 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 16: Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested and jailed poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam and fired a newspaper editor following the publication of Musalam's poem The Corrupt on Earth that criticized the state's Islamic...
. It has been translated in to 17 languages.
Plot Summary
At the start of the 20th century, James Piper sets fire to his dead mother’s piano and heads out across Cape Breton IslandCape Breton Island
Cape Breton Island is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America. It likely corresponds to the word Breton, the French demonym for Brittany....
to find a new place to live. Working as a piano tuner, he meets and eventually elopes with 13-year-old Materia Mahmoud, much to the anger of her wealthy, traditional Lebanese parents. James, madly obsessed with Materia, impregnates her, and then becomes increasingly frustrated and confused by her resulting strange behavior. Materia gives birth to their first daughter, Kathleen, and James subsequently becomes disgusted with his once intriguing wife, finally realizing that he actually married "a child". Materia regrets marrying James, and does not take to the child, as she believes her daughter's relationship with James to be revolting. James, however, is swollen with pride over his beautiful daughter, and spends his time ignoring and neglecting Materia while spoiling and smothering Kathleen. Through the eyes of James, his life is perfect, aside from his wife. According to the town folk, however, something appears to be seriously wrong with the Piper family. Materia is taken in by the kind neighbor Mrs. Luvovitz, who teaches her to sew and cook. Materia misses her old life and her family who have since disowned her. She grows to hate James and their daughter Kathleen.
Though his fixation on his eldest daughter is all encompassing, James eventually impregnates Materia three more times in quick succession. She gives birth to three girls, Mercedes, Frances and Lily, only to have newborn Lily die a crib death shortly after. She is from here on in the novel referred to as "The Other Lily". The novel then explores the girls' relationship with their troubled father; their secretive, silent mother; and friendships that grow between them as they try to figure out their family's strange and mysterious history. As Kathleen grows older, she is perceived by her schoolmates as snobby, and they turn against her. Her father James is her only friend, and when he travels off to war, Kathleen is crushed. James, however, knows that he must leave Kathleen, as he has found himself increasingly attracted to her sexually. To him, enlisting is a way of beating "the devil."
Kathleen befriends her younger sisters, and James later returns as a shadow of his former self. Still, he feels an attraction to his eldest daughter, and he sends her to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to train with a highly-regarded but challenging voice instructor and to fulfill her dream of becoming an opera singer at the Metropolitan Opera House. During her absence, James receives a letter from an "Anonymous Well-Wisher" suggesting that Kathleen may have gotten into trouble in New York. He immediately fetches her from New York, bringing her home where it becomes apparent that she is pregnant. Kathleen spends her pregnancy hidden in her family home, but eventually dies during childbirth, though her mother manages to save her twin children, a boy and a girl, by performing a emergency caesarian section. Influenced by her mother's increasing devotion to Catholicism, Kathleen's younger sister Frances believes the babies must be baptized, and so attempts to do so in the creek behind the house the night of their birth. James catches her, and believes she is trying to drown them. He drags her away and the male twin, named Ambrose by Frances, is accidentally left to drown in the creek. The female twin, Lily, contracts polio from the contaminated water in the creek, but survives the disease by what Mercedes attributes to a miracle. Mercedes, Frances and Lily are all raised to believe Materia is Lily's mother. When the accidental suicide of the grieving Materia shatters the world of the remaining Piper sisters, they come to depend on one another for survival. The development of the sisters — Kathleen, the promising diva; Mercedes, the caretaker; Frances, the mischievous one; and disabled Lily, the innocent one — forms the heart of the novel as they all bear the burden of their tragically flawed father.
Frances, beaten, molested and disowned by her father, causes trouble in school, eventually getting herself expelled, despite Mercedes' best efforts to keep her in check. Frances finds solace in her dolls, matinee movies, her late mother's old hope chest, and her darling younger sister Lily. Frances eventually runs away in the middle of the night, ends up in a beaten down pub run by her Lebanese uncle, and becomes the pub's entertainment and pint-sized whore. She says she does it to save money for Lily, but Frances is unsure as to what exactly she is saving for. She discovers her long-lost grandfathers house, and then becomes obsessed with his African maid, Theresa. Frances stalks and seduces Theresa's brother, Leo, and becomes impregnated by him, after she has saved enough money for Lily and is ready to stop working. She dreams of becoming a mother to a black child. Slowly over the course of her life, Frances remembers in bits and pieces the truth about her father, mother, sisters and her drowned brother/nephew.
Lily is crippled, one of her legs being smaller than the other, and she wears a leather brace. She loves Frances the most of everyone, and was raised to believe Materia and James were her parents, although Frances liked to tell her otherwise. Lily believes everything Frances tells her, and so believes Ambrose is her guardian angel, and often wished for him to protect Frances after she left the house in the middle of the night. Lily said Ambrose lived in the creek, and he came to her in her dreams. Lily led Mercedes to the spot where Frances seduced Leo Taylor, and Mercedes believed that Lily was a saint. Mercedes spends her time praying, taking care of the family and working hard at school. She eventually becomes a teacher.
Kathleen's diary and old dress is eventually sent home by her caretaker in New York, and after Frances reads it, sends it with Lily to New York, to find Kathleen's lover. Through the pages of her diary as Lily reads, we learn of Kathleen's vocal lessons, her instructor she calls the Kaiser, and her illicit love affair with the female black piano accompanist, Rose Lacroix. The romance is a whirlwind, as both women fall madly in love with one another, going to Jazz bars with Rose dressed as a man. Kathleen thrives, and basks in her complete happiness. The world is their oyster, until James barges into Kathleen's apartment one day to find her in bed with the black woman. A furious attack on Rose leads to James' jealous rape of Kathleen, as his sexual desire for her finally overcomes him. This reveals Lily's true mother, and James brings Kathleen home to Cape Breton, where she then dies in childbirth, her dreams shattered and her short and gloriously promising life cut terribly short. James eventually confesses everything to Frances, after her child, Aloysius, is pronounced dead and she becomes depressed. James eventually dies in his reading chair, peacefully, and Frances finally reveals the family's darkest secrets to her sister Mercedes, who is firmly in denial. Frances dies as an elderly woman with the help of Mercedes, without ever knowing the actual fate of her child.
The novel ends in New York, as Lily makes her way across North America to Rose's apartment, where the ghostly return of her lover's doppleganger child pushes her over the edge. The two form a friendship and live together for many years, eventually to be visited by a young black man called Anthony, bearing a gift from Mercedes Piper. He delivers a drawing of a family tree, made by Mercedes, finally revealing all the incest, illegitimate children, crib deaths and affairs that make up the Piper family. Anthony is revealed to be Frances' long-lost son Aloysius, and Lily sits him down to tell him all about his mother.
http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780394281780