Thursday, August 03, 2006

Fall on your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Maybe it is a question of reading a certain book at the right time. Maybe this is just a masterly written good and dark story. Maybe a combination. Fall On Your Knees is definitely no walk in the park. It is a difficult, complex and thought-provoking story about an unfortunate and very dysfunctional family in the early 1900's. One is led to believe, from the first pages, that this could be a sweet lovestory, but this belief is shattered almost at once, and the story about this family's deranged life starts. There is no love lost between the father and the mother, who, in the beginning of the story is no more than a child of 13 years. Her family will not know of her anymore, and his family is dead. Their daughters grow up to become 4 very different women, and while this is not only their story, the main-plot circles around them and their lives. Fall On Your Knees is not a happy book, but it is not unhappy either, and there is a lot of dark humour between the lines all through the story. It can be difficult to grasp the hidden agenda in the story from the beginning, but it will become clear along the way. A very good piece of literary work, which deserves to become a modern classic.

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