This book had me feeling depressed and joyful, horrified and excited, and also grossed out and amazed at the distances that these characters were ready and willing to go to not only for their families, but for their own selfish desires. This novel was dark, intense, and thoroughly gloomy. Don’t get me wrong though, Fall On Your Knees is written beautifully and is cleverly haunting.
In case you want some literary proof about what you would be getting into, should you decide to read the book, the first line is: “They’re all dead now.”
An interesting thing about the he preface is that it’s told from the point of view of someone describing a three dimensional photograph. You see the different rooms described inside the house and what the members of the family were doing at one particular pivotal moment. There are other parts of the book that are described the same way as well, as though life in the story freezes for a couple of moments so the story teller can make sure the reader can truly visualize. This is a subtler passage of the phenomenon:
“The closet beneath the stairs is full of soft dark things. When its door stands open a crack it is possible to discern a thin white stripe interrupting the silver of gloom. That’s Frances peeking out.”
I also wanted to share this passage, which is not only a clear example of the literary portrait, but also a beautiful passage:
“Everything in New York is a photograph. All the things that are supposed to be dirty or rough or unrefined are the most beautiful things. Garbage cans at the ends of alleyways look like they’ve been up all night talking with each other. Doorways with peeling paint look like the wise lines around an old feller’s eyes. I stop and stare but can’t stay because men always think I’m selling something. Or worse, giving something away. I wish I could be invisible. Or at least I wish I didn’t look like something they want to look at. They stop being a part of the picture, they get up from their chess game and come out of the frame at me, blocking my view. What do they see when they look at me?”
I found the story to be divided into three different components, as far as the character development goes. The beginning tells the story of the growing family, and the daughters as little girls, figuring out their own meanings of life. The second part is sort of a plateau, in that it’s all just story telling. No one really gets older, the plot doesn’t really continue, the reader just gets sucked into a regular day-to-day life for a while. Then everyone sort of separates from each other, each sister finding their own paths, venturing in very different directions as they grow older. The sisters can’t understand the other’s directions, and knows they can’t follow anyone else’s path but their own.
As beautiful and interesting this book was, I think I need the next book I read to be a little more uplifting. Maybe even a “happily ever after” thrown in there.
