I think I first read Fall on Your Knees (Knopf Canada, 1996) in my third year of university, after I’d picked up the book at a used book sale. I must have recognized the title, since I scooped it without much of a thought, and when I returned home discovered that the copy had been signed. $3 well spent. And when I actually sat down to read the book, the experience mirrored the book’s purchase: I quickly discovered that I was reading something of far more value than I had initially anticipated. I was absorbed, enchanted, utterly devastated. In fact, this is the book that can be attributed with changing negative attitude in regard to all books with a maple leaf stamped on the spine.
This modern gothic saga begins with an inauspicious wedding between young James and Materia, his child bride; a misguided pairing that will result in several children and omipresent misfortune. This tale of familial strife is set against a vast historical and geographic backdrop: in its approximately forty year span, the novel contains both World Wars, the Depression and the Roaring twenties, the Spanish Influenza and Prohibition, depicting these larger historical events alongside the everyday struggles of [...]
