Random Thinking

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
byKim Edwards

A lie can infect a relationship and tear it apart even if the lie is never revealed. That is the premise of this novel by Kim Edwards. In 1964, Norah Henry gives birth to twins. The first is a boy, Paul, and the second is a girl, Phoebe. But Phoebe has Down syndrome and her father, David Henry, a doctor who has been forced to deliver the twins because of a snow storm, decides to tell his wife that Phoebe was born dead. He tells his nurse, Caroline, to take Phoebe to an institution but she finds herself unwilling to do this and moves away with Phoebe leaving no forwarding address.

This is the beginning of a highly readable and yet flawed story. The book starts out very well but as the years move by I felt like I understood the characters (the Henry household, especially) less and less. Although Edwards tries to justify their behavior based on past events, so much of how they react seems melodramatic and over the top. But even worse, there is no one in the Henry household who really gained my sympathy or concern. David probably did Phoebe a favor by letting Caroline take her. Would Norah have been a good mother to Phoebe? Could David have been less self-centered and less controlling with a daughter with Down syndrome? Would Paul have been less of an idiot? It’s impossible to tell based on what we learn of the characters. Caroline and Phoebe are at least sympathetic, in fact, Caroline becomes a wonderful mother to Phoebe, but the entire story seemed overly staged like a bad Lifetime movie.

But worst of all, Edwards has apparently fallen in love with her characters to the point where she never lets anything really bad happen to any of them. Norah starts a business and it is a huge success. David takes up photography as a hobby when he isn’t being a doctor, and becomes one of the most famous photographers in the country. Paul takes up the guitar and travels around the world playing classical music. Caroline needs a home and a husband and finds both with ease. Ack! Life is never that simple or easy. Sometimes people try things and actually fail. But not in this book. In an interview at the back of the book, Edwards says she identified with all her characters and perhaps that is the problem. I couldn’t identify with any of them, even Caroline who seems saintly for taking Phoebe but I was left wondering how she could leave Norah thinking that her baby died.

The book is a fairly good read although it drags at the end as wonderful things happen to everyone and they all get happy endings. This could have been a better book and being that there is so little fiction written about Down syndrome I wanted it to be a better book. Too bad.