The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

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 winter night long ago.Ī family drama, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter explores every mother's silent fear: What would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? It is also an astonishing tale of love and how the mysterious ties that hold a family together help us survive the heartache that occurs when long-buried secrets are finally uncovered. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. He asks his nurse, Caroline, to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret.

Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy, but the doctor immediately recognizes that his daughter has Down syndrome. Kim Edwards’s stunning novel begins on a winter night in 1964 in Lexington, Kentucky, when a blizzard forces Dr. You will fall in love with Phoebe and the compelling story that is her life.A #1 New York Times bestseller by Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is a brilliantly crafted novel of parallel lives, familial secrets, and the redemptive power of love It was the beginning of a time when people with special needs where just beginning to be looked at as people and not monsters to be shunned and ignored. This book is a compelling look at the prejudices, difficulties and joys of raising a Downs Syndrome child in the 1970’s. So, she keeps Phoebe and raiser her as her own. Caroline is appalled by the condition of the institution and cannot bear to leave the child there.

To protect his wife and family from the sorrows of raising a Downs Syndrome child David gives the child to the nurse, Caroline, to have it taken away to an institution, and tells Norah that she was born stillborn. But then, as he sees it, tragedy strikes and Norah gives birth to Paul’s twin sister Phoebe, a daughter with Downs Syndrome. David Henry is very much in love with his wife Norah, so much so that when their first child Paul is born, he knows their lives will be complete.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards