It's 1964. David Henry, a doctor, is in charge as his wife delivers their first baby, with his office nurse providing the only assistance, due to an unusual Kentucky blizzard. His first-born is a boy, a perfect little boy. Then, shockingly, the blessing doubles: there's another baby, a girl. Before the father can even rejoice, however, he realizes that it isn't a moment of joy, but one of tragedy. The girl has Down's Syndrome. Because it's 1964, it's impossible to have hope for this little girl. Henry believes she's doomed; her future offers nothing but grief. So he does what he sees as the only thing he can, the logical and compassionate thing: he asks the nurse to take the baby away to an institution and he tells his wife that the little girl died.
The nurse, obedient and in love with her boss, drives for hours in the snow. When she arrives, the institution is a dreary place, full of lost souls. It's a warehouse for the feeble, a place where dignity is an unaffordable luxury. She carries the baby back to her car, drives towards home. She stops to buy supplies and gets stranded in the parking lot of the grocery store. She is lucky, rescued by a cross-country trucker. Safe back at home, she decides to raise the baby herself.
These two decisions are at the core of Kim Edwards' debut novel, The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The book leaps from that moment to other parallel moments in the lives of twins Paul and Phoebe, and those involved in the choices that made those lives so very different. There's a spiraling structure, each moment that's revealed moving us closer to the character's interiors, until you've wound your way into their cores. Each time that Edwards chooses to show us, there are echoes of those decisions, reflections upon them, leaving the reader to deduce the causes and effects that have lead to each scene. In some ways, as time marches on, we're really seeing the same moment, over and over, played out in new ways.
One gets the sense that the question Edwards was asking when she wrote this book was "how could anyone live with himself if he did this?" The answer she seems to come up with is, not very well. From the moment of the birth forward, all of David Henry's success is superficial. His relationships, with the lie at their core, are doomed. His marriage is doomed. His son is foreign to him. Meanwhile, his former nurse, Caroline, only comes to life with her decision to save Phoebe. The two parents are a study in opposites. As one family's life grows colder and smaller, the other's blossoms into something almost idyllic. The snow at the beginning of the book is a permafrost on the lives of David, wife Norah, son Paul; for Caroline, it is a snow that nourishes the earth in anticipation of spring.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Sister Ray
I read this book, loved it. but have a different perspective. As a childless woman, I felt empathy for Caroline, but bothered by her self-deception. She was pretending to the world that she had given birth when she hadn't. Phoebe wasn't adopted, she was hidden from her mother. As much as I emphasize and symphathize with Caroline's reasons for what she did, she was in the wrong. Maybe not as much as Phoebe's father, but still in the wrong.
2 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
3 - Erika Triste
This book is so emotion and image provoking that it has been hard to put down. I have thorougly enjoyed this reading and recommend it. The author does a fine job of allowing moments of compassion for each character. Having not had children yet I can still feel for the women of this book and their love for "their" children.
4 - Hilary
Just a small correction in the article above.. After the excerpt of Norah breastfeeding Paul, you follow with another paragraph immediately after that talks about "Caroline" and David's issues with their marriage as a result of David taking Phoebe away. Don't you actually mean Norah?
5 - me
i read this book. and it is a very interesting book but can be boring.
6 - Meagan
I just got finished,excellent,your on an emotional rollercoaster!! I kept finding myself gettting lost in it
7 - Ziauddin Yusuf
The book is well written. If the story is true then I would say that David made a terrible mistake by hiding his daughter from his wife.
On the otherhand if the story is a fiction, then my question to the author is what was the motive, purpose of writing the story. Is it to caution the society that one should not act the David acted?
8 - Ana
The book is rather boring. Exactly, what's the purpose of telling a story such as this? So that you won't be giving up your sick children to someone else? In my opinion, a child deserves to be where he/she is most loved.
9 - jane
I have a son with Downs Syndrome, a lovely young man. The book was so emotional, and I couldn't put it down. The 1960's , when the story started, was a much more difficult time to acknowledge you had even given birth to a child that was disabled. In the 1980's, when my son was born, life seemed, and still does, a lot brighter for all of us.
10 - Christy
This is a response to Ziauddin Yusuf's question. In the copy of the book that I purchased, there is an extra section in the back that lets the readers know how this story came about. It was inspired by a true story, not exactly like the one in the book, but a similar one.
11 - Jennifer
This reviewer is mixing up Caroline and Nora. Here is the quote from above about the breastfeeding passage:
"Interestingly, this is one of Caroline's few moments of happiness. Her husband's actions take her daughter from her, but they also cost her him, too. Their relationship suffers, as David puts up emotional defenses to protect her from the truth, to protect himself from her reaction. The distance between them grows, and Caroline's world shrinks, and her misery manifests itself in inevitable acts of self-destruction."
12 - Sara Inanloo
This book was alright at best. Too much imagery, too many emotional cliches. It seemed the author was trying too hard to make every sentence poetic and that lost my grasp of it and made it quite boring at times. It was not a page turner and was easy to put down. There was, however, some interesting areas and the characters grew nicely so that by the end of it, I felt that these people were my next door neighbors. Out of 10, I give this book a 6.
13 - Linda
Was teh resolution expected, cliched, or unique and surprising. Should the ending be altered?
14 - Jackie
I too had a Down Syndrome child she was born 1981
but she passed away. At first I got angry at the father. But after the nurse took her home instead of the place the father told her, to take Phobee.
when taking care of a child with imperfections.It takes time and patience.I enjoyed
the movie
15 - Michelle
I had a reaction that even I didn't expect. I was some how much more sympathetic to the father - though I think what he does was very wrong - I couldn't stand Norah. I thought she was very selfish. I was aggravated that the author didn't explain why Caroline decided to contact Norah. I felt that the end was rushed to tie up the ends and finish the book.
16 - caitlyn
This was a great book! I couldnt put it down until i finished it although the ending seriously dissapointed me.
17 - Ramzi
i loved the book. It really made me feel as though i was there but watching from above while everything was happening. The only thing wrong with the book though is the ending, it left me very unsatisfied
18 - Andree
I too enjoyed this book and agree that the ending was not satisfying. Basing my comments on the characters as described I do not feel that Phoebe would have had such a full life with her "real" family as they would not have been able to emotionally cope with her as well as Caroline did. Their lives would have been so different and they did not acknowledge this when they found her.
19 - amrita
i really honestly did not like this book at all..especially Norah's character, she is such a selfish, self-absorbed bitch. i really found myself liking david's character though, because he was more real.paul, in his adolscent years is just a spoilt rich kid who takes his luxurious life for granted. when i finished this book, it really disappointed me. but in all fairness, caroline's and phoebe's characters were well-written. god, i just can't stand norah!!
20 - Barbara
I have just finished reading The Memory Keepers Daughter.I appreciated her writing that is unique of writing today. I loved it all. It has been exactly 28 years since I have read a book I could not put down, and all priorities became second to finishing the novel. I searched the internet hoping to find an email address or somewhere tangible to write the author. After stumbling across this website and reading others comments, I cannot leave without adding my own. At the age of 50, I read the book recognizing many lessons of life. I saw them as life lessons one could gain by seeing each character's decision/action effects the next; right down to how the ripple effect of these chosen decisions children will eventually be effected/influenced by the consequences of our actions whether we own them/deny them/ or not; and that in the end, truth is what frees one from a lie. Someone commented negatively about the end, but I think it shows how truth is always the better choice, because regardless how good the intention is, deceit will destroy, and honesty triumphs over deceit. You can try to cover it up, but deceit changes the person, and those being deceived; but in the end the truth will come out, whether in your lifetime or after you are deceased. In the meantime, the life you live is not what it could be, when it is covered in deceit. I loved how she exposed what happens when grief is not dealt with, and by not talking about it does not mean it is dealt with, it digs it's own grave in your soul and will slowly kill the person bringing others connected to them to their soulish cemetary. It is a cold, lifeless place to live, and she shows how many people mask it’s silent cemetary by things we do in life to fill that void; ie: career, adultry, hobby, redecorating a room every year; when all they really want is love, acceptance, truth, kindness, realness, time with each other as knowing who each really was. That takes being real and honesty, both of which were present until the lie and then the secret. The secret became the grave of David’s soul, and the lie became the cemetary of which he wandered around in from that day forward, and his wife and son tried living there with him, but they did not know where they were, in a soulish cemetary because David had to let go of life by removing life, his daughter by saying she was dead. And then to go on living as though she was, though he knew she was alive. Regarding the negative comment on Norah that she was a selfish _itch; I think this was the most revealing of all of what happens to a woman who is devoted to her husband and realizes the traditional role of being a wife, mother, and the whole picture, and how this same woman can over years become the very opposite of who she was when love is not nutured, when she is isolated from her husband and as women are lovers in the heart, I think that the way she slowly evolved into an adultress is truthful of how it does happen. I thought it a teachable warning to any woman who might think they are above ever doing anything like that…that if the circumstances are ripe and the marriage is not healthy, it is something that will slowly snake it’s way into your life if one is not aware. In the end, she drew a line and said, no more. For it did not bring her life, trying to replace what she once had with David only to discover it brought her emptiness. Regarding the negative comment on the details, I think that Kim Edwards did what is true to life in novel form; she fleshed out what we do in real life, the things that we take into our senses surrounding us, that are as important as the words and the tone of our words spoken, the enviornment and the things one sees at the time, the thoughts that are seeded into our minds, all of this is revelant to the person. The novel would be stale without it all. I love Kim's beautiful expressions. I'm so glad to have met this author. I shall most certainly read more of her work. But I do wish I could locate an email or address to write her personally. Does anyone have this valuable piece of information?