MacDonald has constructed a plot worthy of Victor Hugo. '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 There is no resisting this story.' The Globe and Mail She has found the language of the heart that runs below everyday discourse. paints a Cape Breton landscape steeped in human emotion. 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. 'Beautiful… this big, bold, epic shocker of a novel reads as if John Irving met Joyce Carol Oates. '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 Winner of the CBA Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Yearįinals for The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Awardįinalist for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Awardįinalist for The Orange Prize for Fiction Winner of the CBA Libris People's Choice Award Winner of the Canadian Authors' Association Award

Oprah's Book of the Month Club Pick, January 2002 Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book Moving and finely written, Fall On Your Knees is by turns dark and hilariously funny, a story-and a world-that resonate long after the last page is turned. Together they weave a tale of inescapable family bonds, of terrible secrets, of miracles, racial strife, attempted murder, birth and death, and forbidden love. The mythically charged Piper family-James, a father of intelligence and immense ambition, Materia, his Lebanese child-bride, and their daughters: Kathleen, a budding opera Diva Frances, the incorrigible liar and hell-bent bad girl Mercedes, obsessive Catholic and protector of the flock and Lily, the adored invalid who takes us on a quest for truth and redemption-is supported by a richly textured cast of characters. Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Bookįollowing the curves of history in the first half of the twentieth century, Fall On Your Knees takes us from haunted Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, through the battle fields of World War One, to the emerging jazz scene of New York city and into the lives of four unforgettable sisters.

Fall on your knees author