Historical Fiction--Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

Historical Fiction--Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

McCormick, P. (2012). Never fall down. New York, NY: Balzer & Bray.

Never Fall Down is a novel based on the real person named Arn Chorn-Pond and his survival in a children’s labor camp in Cambodia when the Khemer Rouge or Cambodian guerrilla took over in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.  The novel is about Arn’s hardships and experiences he endured in order to survive all those years. One of those experiences was volunteering to play a musical instrument he did not know anything about it, something that helped to save him. Told from Arn’s point of view, the story is told from the time the soldiers arrive in his hometown when he was eleven years old to when he was fifteen and in America.

The story is told in first-person from the point of view of Arn. At the time the regime takes over he is eleven years old. So everything he sees, smells, tastes, and feels is told to the reader through his eyes. After the Khemer Rouge take the people deep into the jungle and they begin to work them long hours, Arn describes what is happening to his little brother, “My little brother, his stomach now getting bloat, full of air from no food. He cry at night, he beg me… I tell him no; I tell him remembering this good food only will make us miss it more” (McCormick, 2012, p. 22).

According to Christine M. Heppermann from Horn Book, Never Fall Down is “written in realistically halting English, the narrative might be unreadable if not for Arn’s brash, resilient personality” (p.93-94). The short sentences and Art’s broken English make it as if he himself had written the story. This brings his character and the time and place to life and adding credibility to the story. In chapter three Arn describes the children’s circumstances as they are walking to a new place. “The rainy season is here now, and the path is like river of mud; and the nighttime is very cold with no blanket, only thin pajama, so we sleep with all of us very close to stay warm. Also it’s the season when malaria can come, and all the time we get bit by bug. At night I think maybe to cry a little bit form my family, but I do like my aunt say, cry only in my mind” (McCormick, 2012, p. 166).

The theme of survival weaves throughout the story from beginning to end. In chapter two as the families are separated Arn’s Aunt tells them how to survive, she says, “Do whatever they say…be like the grass. Bend low, bend low, then bend lower. The wind blow one way, you bow that way, It blow the other way, you do, too. That is the way to survive” (McCormick, 2012, p. 23-24). In another occasion when Arn comes across a group of monkeys and a baby monkey gets near him he grabs him and kills him to survive, “He didn’t do anything to me. But I need to survive. I need to eat. Before I kill human being, and now I kill this animal. Why? Because every minute I have to think about surviving. Every minute” (McCormick, 2012, p. 86).

Music plays a very important role in Never Fall Down.  It not only symbolizes feeling alive and free but it also symbolizes survival. At the beginning of the novel it is mentioned that music is everywhere and it does not discriminate. “At night in our town, it’s music everywhere. Rich house. Poor house. Doesn’t matter. Everyone has music. Radio. Record player. Eight track cassette. Even the guys who pedal the rickshaw cycle, they tie a tiny radio to the handle-bar and sing for the passenger. In my town, music is like air, always there” (McCormick, 2012, p.5). Here Arn says the music is like air, always there like the oxygen that we breathe giving people life no matter who they are and bringing them joy.

Later on when everyone is taken captive to the jungle and the Khemer Rouge want to put together a band, Arn volunteers to be one of the band players thinking this will help him survive even though he doesn’t know how to play any musical instruments. He says, “I just raise my hand. Just give me one bowl of rice, I think, then you can kill me” (McCormick, 2012, p. 31). Then as the old man is trying to teach him to play the instruments in less than five days Arn realizes he must learn in order to stay alive. “I almost cry one time, it’s so hard. But the old man, he whisper in my ear. Learn fast he says. You don’t learn, they gonna kill you” (McCormick, 2012, p. 31). Then as Arn leads the other boys to play music time after time for the Khemer Rouge, Arn begins to realize he is respected by the soldiers when he sneaks out of his hut and gets caught, “This is death. To be out alone at night is death. To run, that’s also death. So I raise my hands and come out of the wood. The Khmer Rouge, he click his gun, ready to fire. You the khim player? I nod. He put the gun away. Go back to bed he says” (McCormick, 2012, p.48). And so by learning how play the musical instruments, Arn is able to survive for a little more.

Never Fall Down was a National Book Award Finalist in 2012 and in my opinion it’s a must read. At the beginning the novel is a little difficult to read because the way the story is told in Arn’s broken English but as the reader continues reading, Arn’s voice comes alive sentence by sentence. The novel is not an easy one to read due to the graphic and explicit details of children dying of starvation, disease, and the massive killings. Every step of the way the reader smells, feels, and sees the catastrophes as they are told, yet through it all, the story of the many innocent lives lost in Cambodia’s genocide must be heard, even if it’s through a child’s eyes.

References

 

Heppermann, C. (2012). Never fall down. Horn Book Magazine, 88(3), 93-94.

McCormick, P. (2012). Never fall down. New York, NY: Balzer & Bray.

Mydans, S. (2012). From the killing fields. The New York Times Book Review, 25.