David is a decent but secretive man,—he has shared his difficult past with no one, not even his wife. It is a past that includes growing up in a poor, uneducated family and the death of a beloved sister whose heart defect claimed her at the age of twelve. The painful memories of the past and the difficult circumstances of the present intersect to create a crisis, one in which his overriding concern is to spare his beloved Norah what he sees as a life of grief. He hands the baby girl over to Caroline, along with the address of a home to which he wants her taken, not imagining beyond the moment, or anticipating how his actions will serve to destroy the very things he wishes to protect. Then he turns to Norah, telling her,
In The Memory Keeper's Daughter, a man named David discovers that his newly born son is in fine health, but the child's twin sister is stricken with Down Syndrome. So, the distraught father, who harbors painful memories of his own sister's chronic illness, makes a quick but incredibly difficult decision: he asks the attending nurse to take his daughter to an institution where she might receive better care. Although he tells his wife that the child was stillborn, David's decision goes on to affect the lives of himself and his wife for the following 25 years.
ld"Edwards, the author of a short-story collection and the winner of a Nelson Algren Award, is a born novelist. From the riveting depiction of the twinshrs" birth, which opens the book, she sustains suspense through 400 pages of compelling prose, consistent characterization and a plot that is poignant without being preachy or sticky-sweet. THE MEMORY KEEPERsrs"S DAUGHTER is a paean to such persistence and power, rich with psychological detail and the nuances of human connection.ird" omdash;The Chicago Tribune
