"The Memory Keeper's Daughter"

While looking for an outside reading book, I scrolled through Ms. Fay's blog to see if there would be anything I was interested. After contemplating a few titles, I settled on "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards. Set in the mid 1900's Edwards begins her novel with the birth of twins, a boy and a girl. The mother of the twins, Norah Henry decided last minute on names, Paul for a boy and Phoebe for a girl. Her husband, David Henry, delivered the unexpected twins. While he was no specialist, he realizes right away that their daughter, Phoebe had Down's syndrome. He makes the split-second decision to give up Phoebe, he handed her to his nurse, Caroline Gill and ordered her to take the baby to an institution. David simply told Norah that their daughter had died at birth. Norah's then fell into Post-Pardom Depression. The remainder of the novel followed the ups and downs of the Henry family. However, it also told the story of Caroline Gill. Caroline had gone to the institution to drop off Phoebe but when she saw how awful the conditions were, she could not bring herself to leave an innocent bay there. She left town with Phoebe and raised her to become a wonderful young women. However, Norah remained miserable and she fought with David often, they barely spoke to each other. Their son, Paul, had a difficult childhood because he strived to impress his parents with his musical talents but Norah was not always interested and David was too focused on reconnecting with Phoebe. David's secret tore the family into two and they were never able to recover. Norah had multiple affairs and eventually they ended their marriage with divorce. Shortly after the divorce, David died from a heart attack. Happily living in Paris at the time with her fiance, Norah was just as shocked as Caroline Gill to hear the news. Norah returned to the house she once shared with David to pack up his belongings and while she was cleaning, Caroline Gill knocked on the door. Caroline told Norah everything that David had been keeping from her all those years and most importantly, how Phoebe was doing. After taking some time to react to the news, Norah and Paul visited Phoebe in an effort to make up for all their lost time. The novel ended with Norah living in Paris but with plans for Phoebe to visit her and Paul moved to Cleveland in an effort to spend more time with Phoebe. While the ending was expected, there were many twists and turns throughout the whole novel that attempted to mislead you.


Before I read "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" I knew it was going to be a sad novel. Kim Edwards immense use of detail created a sad and depressing tone to the novel which set the true scene of Norah Henry's life. Edward's intense focus on the characters' emotions helped to depict each individual feeling of each character. The strong use of character description helped the characters tell the story even though it was told from a third person point of view. Edwards also used a lot of imagery which helped her audience feel like they were a part of the story. Her use of imagery not only created the scenery but it also showed how certain surroundings affected a characters feelings at that time. Throughout the whole novel, Edwards used pathos. It was easy to tell the emotions of all of her characters but it was especially easy to determine the feelings of Norah, David, and Caroline. Edwards continually described the conflicting feelings of Norah and David and the nervous feelings of Caroline. Her description of feelings and emotions always set the tone for the scene and added drama and intensity to the novel. Although there was a happy ending, this was a very dark novel to read. It was upsetting to me that babies born with disabilities were given no chance to prove themselves and it horrified me to know that places such as "institutions" existed less than 4o years ago. I was disgusted to read how people treated Phoebe and those like her but was overjoyed when Caroline began to make a difference. With each setback in the novel, Edwards always seemed to introduce a new opportunity to improve the situation. I think that Edwards is a talented writer and is able to adapt her styles to fit the intensity of the novel. I enjoyed reading "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" however for my next outside reading book I hope to chose one with a more upbeat theme.