Quite memorable !   From Publishers WeeklyEdwards's assured but schematic debut novel (after her collection, The Secrets of a Fire King) hinges on the birth of fraternal twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down syndrome, resulting in the father's disavowal of his newborn daughter. A snowstorm immobilizes Lexington, Ky., in 1964, and when young Norah Henry goes into labor, her husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Henry, must deliver their babies himself, aided only by a nurse. Seeing his daughter's handicap, he instructs the nurse, Caroline Gill, to take her to a home and later tells Norah, who was drugged during labor, that their son Paul's twin died at birth. Instead of institutionalizing Phoebe, Caroline absconds with her to Pittsburgh. David's deception becomes the defining moment of the main characters' lives, and Phoebe's absence corrodes her birth family's core over the course of the next 25 years. David's undetected lie warps his marriage; he grapples with guilt; Norah mourns her lost child; and Paul not only deals with his parents' icy relationship but with his own yearnings for his sister as well. Though the impact of Phoebe's loss makes sense, Edwards's redundant handling of the trope robs it of credibility. This neatly structured story is a little too moist with compassion. ( )

Quite memorable !   From Publishers WeeklyEdwards's assured but schematic debut novel (after her collection, The Secrets of a Fire King) hinges on the birth of fraternal twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down syndrome, resulting in the father's disavowal of his newborn daughter. A snowstorm immobilizes Lexington, Ky., in 1964, and when young Norah Henry goes into labor, her husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Henry, must deliver their babies himself, aided only by a nurse. Seeing his daughter's handicap, he instructs the nurse, Caroline Gill, to take her to a home and later tells Norah, who was drugged during labor, that their son Paul's twin died at birth. Instead of institutionalizing Phoebe, Caroline absconds with her to Pittsburgh. David's deception becomes the defining moment of the main characters' lives, and Phoebe's absence corrodes her birth family's core over the course of the next 25 years. David's undetected lie warps his marriage; he grapples with guilt; Norah mourns her lost child; and Paul not only deals with his parents' icy relationship but with his own yearnings for his sister as well. Though the impact of Phoebe's loss makes sense, Edwards's redundant handling of the trope robs it of credibility. This neatly structured story is a little too moist with compassion. ( )

Another book that I read after much of the hype.
At first I really enjoyed the story and I got into the characters quickly, but, I found that the story dragged a little and in the end I did not find it to be the great literary work that many people talked about.

I read this a while ago so I cannot remember fine details in the story. I simply remember that I thought the book was "ok" and not great. I did like the writing style of the author though and would read more of her books for sure. ( )

This isn't the sort of book that usually attracts me. With few exceptions, the books that are enormously popular, as this has been, and that make critics fall over themselves praising them, usually leave me a bit cold. Sure, I enjoy them well enough, but they don't usually engage me beyond the surface or stick with me long after the last page is turned, but this one, which interested me because the daughter of the title has Down's Syndrome, is one of the rare ones.

The plot is pure soap opera. It's also about secrets and how they can control your life. A doctor, upon delivering his twins during a snowstorm in 1964, sees the telltale signs of Down's Syndrome in his baby girl and gives her to his nurse to bring to an institution, hoping to spare his wife the grief of raising a child he believes is doomed to a short, unhappy life. Their son is healthy and perfect and that should be enough, so he tells her their daughter died.

The nurse, however, can't bring herself to leave the baby in such a dreadful place, and secretly in love with the doctor and longing for a child of her own, takes the baby and moves away. The consequences of the doctor's decision and the nurse's act are what move the book through the next 25 years.

The doctor, David Henry, consumed with his never reconciled grief over his own sister's death at an early age and guilt over giving up Phoebe, grows estranged from his wife, Norah, and their son, Paul, losing himself in his work and in photography as he tries to capture life in pictures, seeking something he can't quite find.

Meanwhile, Caroline, the nurse, in trying to make a life for Phoebe, becomes a confident mother fighting for the education and rights of her child, finding love with a truck driver, while fighting the fear that David will find her and demand she return Phoebe to him.

The prose gets overly poetic at times and the plot often feels forced, manipulative, as things have to happen the way they do, coincidences and all, so things will work out as they do, but that didn't matter because the characters are so richly drawn in their pain and triumphs. The emotions ring true, even if I would've liked something a bit different at the end,which I don't want to mention because it will give too much away.

So, while I'm late to reading this book, if there are any of you out there who hasn't read it, I recommend it. And keep a tissue handy. ( )

before i read this story, i havenot though a secret would ruin a family,would make a thing millions of different. what a secret could brought a terrible result was beyond my imagine.i though everyone own their secrets those secret kept the other from hurting, or protect themself not to be hurt,those kinds of secrets are unharmful. yet, in this story a secret is the root of tragedy. i dont like this sort of story, i mean those stories with miserable ending, or those stories made the reader a sort of sufocate during the reading.i havenot finished the story but i force myself to write something about it, i am not hoping when the reading end the feeling slip away and left me a blank brain,just like nonthing happened.
at any rate, this is a fascinating novel.