Fall On Your Knees by Anne-Marie McDonald

This book is a jolly ripping good story, wot. McDonald can "really put one over" to quote somebody's father. Fall On Your Knees follows the Pipers, an odd-duck family living on Canada's Cape Breton Island. Three or four intermixed generations are depicted against the backdrop of an impoverished mining community that gradually grows into an impoverished mining town.

The eldest Piper sister, Kathleen, has a stunning future as an opera star. Frances, the difficult sister, also takes to the stage as a performance artist-cum-burlesque princess. Mercedes holds the family fort with indifferent cooking while she carefully watches Lily, the youngest, for signs of sainthood. All the characters are richly developed and the story is complex. The mystery of Kathleen's New York City adventure is woven throughout the Cape Breton narrative. Through Kathleen's diary we get to read of her own growth as an aspiring artist, with a hunger for everything city life can offer:

"Glorious Sunday - I think the most beautiful sculpture in the world consists of fire escapes long-legging down buildings with their fancy fretwork, skinny black dancers creeping out their windows to the street below. By lamplight inder a smoky moon. I'm on my favourite bench in Central Park."

This nice fat book was such an engaging read I even forgave the title, which kept triggering off that Christmas carol Oh Night Divine for endless repitition inside my head - you know the one: Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices, oh ni-ght di-vine, o-oh night, when etc etc.

There. Maybe I finally managed to pass it on.

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