Review
From the book jacket: 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's
syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a
split second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks the
nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret.
But 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 David Henry's fateful decision that long-ago
winter night.
Comment: It could be easy to cast David as the bad guy in...
Beyond the Book
At first glance the heartfelt tale told in
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
has little in common with the children's book
The Sea of Trolls, also
recommended in this issue, but dig a little deeper and a connection does
appear.
In
The Memory Keeper's Daughter David Henry sends his daughter away, out
of sight, never to be talked of; in the
Sea of Trolls Jack must navigate
the terrifying world of trolls, changelings and the like. Many scholars
believe the European legends of changeling children originated as a way of
explaining the birth of children with mental and physical handicaps. In
olden times, rather than be burdened with the responsibility for raising a
handicapped child the parents could conclude that the child...
