The Memory Keeper’s Daughter (Book Review)

For a long time I had been far removed from the book world. Not in that I stopped reading, but mainly in that I wasn’t keeping up with what were the “hot” books, the bestsellers, etc. I tended to wander into a book store, grab a book that looked interesting to me and purchase it (along with five or six others I just happened to come across). It wasn’t until I got this writing job that I really dove back into the world of book news.

So, when I bought the Memory Keeper’s Daughter, I knew little to nothing about it. I’m fairly certain I read the back cover for a quick synopsis, but I when I started to read the book, I had no idea what the basic premise was or what the book was really about.

The story takes place from the 60s to the 80s when Dr. David Henry goes to take his wife to the hospital on a snowy night. She is in labor. Due to the weather, only David and his nurse, Caroline, are there when Norah Henry delivers not one, but two babies – a boy and a girl. The boy, Paul, is exceptionally healthy. But David can tell that the girl, Phoebe, has Down’s Syndrome. Back in the 1960s, there wasn’t much hope for children like Phoebe, so David gives the baby girl to Caroline and tells her to take Phoebe to an institution. Caroline takes the baby and leaves. Norah, who has been unconscious for much of the delivery, has no knowledge of what her husband has just done and believes David when he says the baby girl died. One small twist to the story: Caroline takes Phoebe to the institution, then realizes she can’t leave the baby in a place like that and keep Phoebe with her. She moves and starts a whole new life in another city and raises Phoebe as her own.

Kim Edwards is a vivid writer. Her descriptions of inanimate objects are superb without being overdone. She is very good at revealing bits and pieces of the characters’ former lives throughout the book and the exchanges of dialogue between them are realistic for the most part. However, pieces of the plot felt a bit strained in terms of the way it was being made to fit into the overall story. There were a number of parts that certainly had me scratching my head, wondering what that had to do with the overall story.

I was fascinated by the way a single moment, a single decision, changed so many lives. The way the Henry family slowly unravels following Phoebe’s “death” and the way Caroline thrived as a mother shows a classic (albeit “black and white”) example of the consequences of one’s actions. I especially enjoyed reading about Caroline’s struggle to get her daughter equal and fair treatment in the school system and in society as a whole. For me, not enough time was spent on that subject.

All in all, I would recommend this book, but not overwhelmingly. Everything tied a little too neatly for me at the end, especially for such a complicated story line. There were some parts that just didn’t fit in with the overall plot, but the book is a good read nonetheless. I recommend reading this book during a lazy weekend, but don’t expect yourself to not be able to put it down.

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