Ratings62
Average rating3.4
On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. Bur Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this beautifully told story that unfolds over a quarter of a century—in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by the fateful decision made that long-ago winter night. Norah Henry, who knows only that her daughter died at birth, remains inconsolable; her grief weighs heavily on their marriage. And Paul, their son, raises himself as best he can in a house grown cold with mourning. Meanwhile, Phoebe, the lost daughter, grows from a sunny child to a vibrant young woman whose mother loves her as fiercely as if she were her own.
A brilliantly crafted, stunning debut, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter articulates a silent fear close to every parent: What would happen if you lost your child, and she grew up without you? Rich, compulsively readable, and deeply moving, the novel explores the way life takes unexpected turns, and how the mysterious ties that hold a family together help us survive the heartache that occurs when long-buried secrets burst into the open. Yet it is also an astonishing tale of redemptive love.
([source][1])
[1]: https://kimedwardsbooks.com/books/the-memory-keepers-daughter/overview
Reviews with the most likes.
A distressing story about a pair of twins separated at birth, but a story that is really about the decisions that people make, and how they impact others in the end. Beautifully written.
LFL find...not sure if I should put it back, as I wouldn't want someone else to squander their time with this one.
The beginning was intriguing. The rest was a redundant, dark, and dull slog through the depressing lives of David, Norah, and Paul. Wish I hadn't wasted my time reading this one.
Hmm. This book was okay. Which I really feel like is damning with faint praise when it comes from a reader like me, who has a high tolerance for the type of “higher brow” chick lit that gets sold on the front table of airport bookstores. There's the potential for an interesting plot, but that really gets bungled by the fact that Edwards' characters all turn out to be martyrs, and not even martyrs who are all that different from one another. And I guess I don't really believe in martyrs who don't have martyr complexes, so I ended up not feeling a ton (or a tiny bit) of sympathy for the pathos they all endure. There were parts that were compelling, but whenever I finish a book mostly out of obligation (and the desperate, irrational hope that things will turn awesome in the last 100 pages), I feel like that's a bad sign. I guess that means I have a book-finishing-martyr-complex.
This book was pretty good. I'm glad they all met in the end. I think David was a coward, and saw himself as the victim. He saw the damage his actions did too late and then was too paralyzed by guilt to fix it. Norah, Paul and Caroline were the stronger characters.