This was our first book club's choice. It was so so sad and a bit depressing. During a snow storm a doctor is forced to deliever his first child, a baby boy. He is shocked to discover twins and that the second child (a girl) has developmental problems. With only his nurse as witness, he tells his wife the child is dead and the nurse takes the very much alive child away. The doctor thinks the child doesn't have long to live but the nurse secrets her out of town and raises the child. This act obviously affects many many lives. It has a lot to do with marriage, secrets, love, trust, and forgiveness (and non-forgiveness). It was a great story and written very well but it was very depressing really. I guess I tend to go for lighter books. So this is just a warning: great book but very sad. ( )

Doctor gives away infant daughter with down's syndrome. ( )

Yawn. ( )

Opening Sentence: '...The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began...'

If it wasn't for the ending - this would have been a really good book. I was really looking forward to this book as it had been given some great reviews. The basis of the plot was good: what happened when the decision of one man made in a split second changed the lives of the characters forever?

It all begins on a snowy night in the 1960s, when twins Paul and Phoebe Henry are born and their father has to deliver them. David Henry, a surgeon, instantly recognizes the signs of Down's syndrome in his daughter and knows there is a great chance of the child being sickly and dying early. He decides that to save his wife heartache - as his own sister died young of heart defects - he will have his nurse Caroline Gill take the baby to a home. He'll tell Norah the baby died at birth, and no one will be the wiser.

However, Caroline finds herself unable to give the baby up after seeing the conditions of the home. Impulsively, she decides to keep little Phoebe herself, moving away and beginning a new life as the infant's mother.

What David didn't expect was his Norah's continued preoccupation with the dead baby. She can't seem to forget her daughter, as he expected she would. Whenever she brings it up he feels guilty and angry, which ends up driving a wedge between the two of them. They can't solve the problems in their marriage because David can't tell her this secret which is the root of everything wrong with them. As Paul grows up, things get worse and worse.

Meanwhile, Caroline gets married, and as far as Phoebe is concerned, she and Al are her true parents. Although she has her limitations, Phoebe's condition is not nearly as terrible as Dr. Henry had initially feared, and she thrives.

The first chapters were good and I got sucked right into it, then it seemed to lose steam and I was left wandering what had happened - why the ending was not an ending, why so much wasn't explained. It was almost as if the author knew what was going on, but didn't need to let the readers know. I didn't get a sense of closure. ( )

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards is the unfolding of the outcome of David’s decision. It shows how this one secret, and really, much more that David has kept all his life, erects a wall between him and his family. In his attempt to spare his wife and son the pain of having a daughter and sister who’s condition he believes will be a burden on them their entire life, he has only substituted one pain for another. By the time he realizes his lie has caused more heartache than the truth ever could, his family has become individuals, islands unto themselves, lonely and feeling like they could never be good enough for the rest.

Because this book does a great job at recreating the sentiments of the time period toward special needs children, there are times when what’s being said is offensive. My two older girls have special needs, and when the nurse in the Pittsburgh hospital asks Caroline if she really wants her to save Phoebe’s life, it rankled me as much as it did Caroline. The book doesn’t crank out a happily ever after scenario, nor does it become an “Oh my God, yet another tragedy” soap opera, instead it presents a plausible, heart-felt outcome.

Things to keep in mind if you plan to read this book: It is a real look at what life is like raising a child with special needs, and raising that child into adulthood. It is a lifetime of events, and therefore can seem long, but it doesn’t drag. Also, it does have heavy and sad moments, the character’s don’t do “the right thing” and there are no heroes… except maybe Paul and Phoebe, and even then maybe just Phoebe.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards can help the reader have more compassion for caretakers of special needs children, as well as having a moral that the truth is always the better way to go, that the best of intentions is often the surest and straightest path to Hell.

click for full review: http://thekoolaidmom.wordpress.com/20... ( )