One of them dies anyway, followed two days later by Mom, who commits suicide. All still isn't well, however, when she comes home pregnant six months later, then dies in childbirth when Mom slices her open to save her daughter's twins. Appalled, he patches things up with his wife (two more daughters being the result), goes off to fight in WW I, and sends Kathleen to New York to study voice after he returns.

But another shadow falls on the family when James finds himself making improper advances to her. Although the ardor between James and his spouse soon cools, they now have a daughter, Kathleen, who seems destined for great things when her breathtaking voice and beauty begin to captivate all as she enters her teens. As the 19th century ends, young James Piper travels from the Breton hinterland to the civilized port of Sydney seeking his fortune, and in no time at all he acquires a child bride, a house built by his Lebanese father-in-law, and the everlasting enmity of his wife's powerful family. One by one, the Pipers replay the fall of Adam and Eve into sin.From award-winning Canadian actress and playwright MacDonald comes a full-bodied, ever-rolling debut, the story of a talented Cape Breton family with more than its share of repression and tragedy. The novel links sexuality to the Catholic bugaboos of devils and damnation: Sex is a violation, a taboo, a dirty secret, or a sin the children it creates suffer and die, while their parents face the shame of illegitimacy or the criminal trespass of having a relationship with someone of another race. Fittingly for the novel’s interest in Catholic dogma, sexual passion is a problem, typically leading to moral downfall and damnation. Even relatively stabilizing relationships are either sustained by lies and secrets, or cool into indifference or oppression. Otherwise, sexuality in the novel is defined more by lust than by the romantic ideals of respect, communication, trust, and support.

The novel offers only one example of healthy sexual attraction-Kathleen’s ecstatic relationship with Rose.

As each character moves away from childhood innocence, the complexity of adult sexuality initiates unsettling insights into the reality of animal urges.

Novel fall on your knees