Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
#20 in my book challenge for the year, Fall on Your Knees has been on my shelf since 1998. It was a recommendation from my friend Queenie, whose past picks (Alias Grace, Bee Season, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, The Intuitionist, Plainsong, among others) were both intelligent and entertaining. At 500+ densely printed pages in trade paperback, though, its size put me off. But since part of this year’s book challenge is to read those poor souls gathering dust unread on the shelf, I finally gave it my time. This is a big, juicy novel with lots of characters and time shifts and a secret that took me by surprise. I especially loved two characters–Materia and her daughter Frances–and couldn’t quite bring myself to hate some others, no matter how nastily they behaved. There’s lots of painful stuff, but there’s also lots of joy, and I enjoyed the time I spent with the Cape Breton family, and am now off to dig up my Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac CDs.
May 13th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Isn’t it interesting that those often overlooked shelf-sitters can turn out to be gold? I’m reading “A mother and two daughters” by Gail Godwin which I’ve had for 10 years, and after initial slow going, I’m racing through it. I’ve seen Fall on Your Knees at the library, so I’ll add it to my list…
May 24th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Kitchen by Banana Yashimoto was another of those shelf-sitters, one that I further doubted because it was remaindered and so prevalent in used bookstores. I shouldn’t have doubted–I loved it when I finally read it.
BUT, Godwin’s Father Melancholy’s Daughter was an exception to that for me. It sat for years, a gift from my mom. When I finally read it, I actively disliked it. I found the voice of the main character not believable, the plot overdetermined, and most, maybe all, of the characters just plain unlikeable.
I hope you’ve had better luck with A Mother and 2 Daughters.