Scooter Chronicles

On Monday night I finished reading “Fall On Your Knees” by Ann-Marie MacDonald. This was her debut novel, being better known for writing plays, as well as acting in them and movies.

Here is a rundown on what the story entails, partially from the inside flap of the hardcover edition, according to Amazon.Com:

Set largely in a Cape Breton, Nova Scotia coal mining community called New Waterford, ranging through four generations … the novel focuses on the Piper sisters and their troubled relationship with their father, James.

At the start of the 20th century, James Piper sets fire to his dead mother’s piano and heads out across Cape Breton Island to find a new place to live, eventually eloping with 13-year-old Materia Mahmoud, the daughter of wealthy, traditional Lebanese parents. And so, from early on, Ann-Marie MacDonald establishes some major themes: racial tension, isolation, passion, and forbidden love, which will gradually lead to incest, death in childbirth, and even murder. At the center of this epic story is the nature of family love, beginning with the Piper sister who depend on one another for survival. Their development as characters — beautiful Kathleen, the promising diva; saintly Mercedes; Frances, the mischievous bad girl, who tries to bear the family’s burden; and disabled Lily, everyone’s favorite — forms the heart of the novel. And then there is James, their flawed father.

Moving from Cape Breton Island to the battlefields of World War I, to Harlem in New York’s Jazz Age and the Depression, the tense and enthralling plot … contains love, pain, death, joy, and triumph.

This book was suggested to me by a former co-worker. The synopsis that usually accompanies the book on Amazon is very short and sweet, and almost makes it sound like a sweeping epic of romantic “chick-lit.” (Excuse the derogatory comment please.) I was surprised that he would read something like that, and was hesitant to get a copy. Well, thanks to BookMooch I found a copy and decided to get it, since there had to be more to it. As you can tell from the description above, after digging deep into the reviews at Amazon, that it’s a meaty read. It runs the gambit of everything from dark themes to good humor.

The biggest aspect that made the book such a compelling read was MacDonald’s writing style. She pulled all the tricks correctly. She foreshadowed very well. Sometimes she would come right out and tell you the tragic event, leaving the reader (or at least me) going, “What the hell?!” Then she would go back and play out the moments or reasons for the events. She held off the biggest secret until the end, and did it in a fascinating way. Frances learns the real secrets, then lets the others in on them. But the person that needs to know the biggest secret is led through by a diary. And it’s saved for the last quarter of the book. It was all pulled off very well. She kept the story so interesting that you didn’t mind not knowing the secrets, or even knowing that they were there. MacDonald’s prose also played out very well. Being very poetic at times, or almost surreal. But again, at the right moments to describe the scene.

The dark themes of the book are not very graphic. Some are glanced over rather quickly. For those with a weak stomach, fear not. The story is steeped in all the crazy things that make for a thick plot. But she doesn’t tell you things you don’t need to know. Just enough.

Quite a gripping read.