The Fall

The Fall traces three paths taken through one small village in Lincolnshire: by Isaac Newton, by the Rev. Charles Hudson, who attempted to climb the Matterhorn, and by the actor David Niven.

The Fall traces three paths taken through one small village in Lincolnshire by Isaac Newton, who received his first schooling there in the mid-17th century; by the Rev. Charles Hudson, who was vicar in the 1860s; and by the actor David Niven, who visited his mother-in-law there in the 1940s. Each is intent on his own preoccupations – on understanding the physical world, on conquering the Matterhorn, on conquering women – but there is a thread which binds them. An insignificant village becomes the unwitting centre of life-changing events and inevitable tragedy. Told from the margins – through the experience of a questioning child, and of wives and mothers who live as helpmeets to their men – The Fall is an act of vivid observ