The Memory Keeper's Daughter: Summary and book reviews of The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, plus links to an excerpt from The Memory Keeper's Daughter and a biography of Kim Edwards.
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
by Kim Edwards
Hardcover: Jun 2005,
416 pages.
Paperback: May 2006,
432 pages.
Award-winning writer Kim Edwards's The Memory Keeper's Daughter is a brilliantly crafted family drama that explores every mother's silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you?
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 his 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.
A rich and deeply moving page-turner, The Memory Keeper's Daughter captures 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. It is an astonishing tale of redemptive love.
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
First-novelist Edwards (stories: The Secrets of a Fire King, 1997) excels at celebrating a quiet wholesomeness but stumbles over her storyline.
Booklist - Carolyn Kubisz
Unfolding the plot over the course of 25 years, Edwards tells a moving story of two families bound by a secret that both eats away at relationships and eventually helps to create new ones.
Publisher's Weekly
This neatly structured story is a little too moist with compassion.
Library Journal
First-time novelist Edwards-author of the short story collection The Secrets of a Fire King - has written a heart - wrenching book, by turns light and dark, literary and suspenseful. A natural for book discussion groups; recommended.
The Washington Post - Ron Charles
Some ominously saccharine moments indicate that Edwards can slip into the treacly trade -- "The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away" -- but these gaffes are relatively infrequent, especially considering the presence of a handicapped character, who would, in less disciplined hands, be used to generate a waterfall of sentimental tears.
Sue Monk Kidd
I loved this riveting story with its intricate characters and beautiful language.
Jodi Picoult
Unfolds from an absolutely gripping premise, drawing you deeply and irrevocably into the entangled lives of two families and the devastating secret that shaped them both. I loved this riveting story.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Cloggie Downunder Very moving The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is the first novel by Kim Edwards. The story is set in the 1960s and involves a doctor, David Henry, whose wife, Norah, goes into labour during a snowstorm. Unable to get to the hospital, he takes her to his surgery,... Read More
Rated of 5
by Sarah MKD This book was very captivating although I found some spots to be a little dull.
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Kirkus Reviews
Sue Monk Kidd
of 5
by Cloggie Downunder
of 5
by Sarah
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