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The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
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The Memory Keeper's Daughter (original 2005; edition 2007)

by Kim Edwards

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
12,328394174 (3.47)1 / 320
Member:Glorybe1
Title:The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Authors:Kim Edwards
Info:Penguin (2007), Edition: 1st Penguin Edition, Paperback, 432 pages
Collections:Finished, Your library
Rating:*****
Tags:None

Work details

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (2005)

2006 (50) 2007 (82) adoption (115) American (38) book club (117) contemporary fiction (84) disability (44) down syndrome (478) drama (34) family (289) family relationships (50) family secrets (37) fiction (1,316) grief (67) Kentucky (68) lies (43) literature (43) loss (48) marriage (57) novel (141) own (67) photography (53) Pittsburgh (32) read (160) read in 2007 (61) relationships (67) secrets (168) to-read (116) twins (206) unread (57)
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English (385)  Dutch (3)  Portuguese (2)  Spanish (2)  All languages (392)
Showing 1-5 of 385 (next | show all)
Kim Edwards's stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother's silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and to keep her birth a secret. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, The Memory Keeper's Daughter is an astonishing tale of redemptive love.
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  tauruseducation | Jun 11, 2013 |
I would've given this book 2.5 stars if possible, but decided to round up. I thought the premise was interesting, but the book as a whole wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped. The storyline lent itself to more surpises and unpredictability than were there. ( )
  dukefan86 | May 29, 2013 |
Not every book we read can be brilliant, as was proven with July’s book The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. The majority of us agreed that this book could not support the ‘hype’ that was built around its release. And although we believed the subject content held promise, the author’s style was a disappointment. At best it was described as mediocre, at worst, dreary. It was also suggested that Edwards was attempting to
write in a Jodi Picoult style … something she missed by a wide margin! ( )
  DaptoLibrary | May 20, 2013 |
I enjoyed it. Even though David was trying to cause less pain and heartache for his wife, I think his actions caused more pain to his family. ( )
  JenniferLynn | May 13, 2013 |
This story really caught me on the book cover, but I was a little disappointed as I kept reading. I felt the author kept hammering out the same "points" over and over about the parents' grief and guilt through the entire story. Although it was an interesting plot and conflict, I did not feel that the story really grew. Maybe that was her idea--it's hard to grow when you plant lies in your family? Anyway, if you're looking for something to read that doesn't require a lot of characters to keep up with, and you like a little sentiment, this would be the story for you. However, it does start to "bog down" about halfway through. ( )
  abwahl1998 | May 10, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 385 (next | show all)
Kim Edwards's debut novel is a winner, and those who read THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER are going to want to read her next one. Highly recommended.
 
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Epigraph
Dedication
For Abigail and Naomi
First words
The snow started to fall several hours before her labor began.
Quotations
They'd live their lives day by day, each one taking them another step away from their lost daughter.
... when he slid his arms around her again, he was thinking, I love you. I love you so much, and I lied to you. And the distance between them, millimeters only, the space of a breath, opened up and deepened, became a cavern at whose edge he stood.
Their lost daughter still hovered between them; their lives had shaped themselves around her absence.
She did not know that her discarded clothes fluttered in a wind that he himself had set in motion so many years ago.
This was the grief he had carried with him, heavy as a stone in his heart. This was the grief he had tried to spare Norah and Paul, only to create so many others.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Book description
A heart wrenching novel about human choice. Dr. David Henry makes a choice that forever changes lives of his family. Edwards delves into her characters and makes the reader feel as thought they are looking through a window into someone's life.
Haiku summary

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0143037145, Paperback)

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.

(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 03 Jan 2013 11:19:28 -0500)

(see all 8 descriptions)

"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 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 long-ago winter night. Norah henry, who knows only that her daughter died at birth, remains inconsolable; her grief weighs heavily on their marriage. And Paul, their son, raises himself as best he can, in a house grown cold with mourning. Meanwhile, Phoebe, the lost daughter, grows from a sunny child to a vibrant young woman whose mother loves her as fiercely as if she were her own." "The Memory Keeper's Daughter articulates a silent fear close to the heart of every mother: What would happen if you lost your child, and she grew up without you?"--BOOK JACKET.… (more)

(summary from another edition)

» see all 7 descriptions

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