I read this book as it was passed around in our Bookwormz club and I
actually read it through- fast. Kim Edwards must surely have gone through a
similar experience to have written such a book!
The main storyline is of Dr.Henry delivering his twins. His first-born is a
boy, a perfect little boy. Then, shockingly, the blessing doubles: there’s
another baby, a girl. Before the father can even rejoice, however, he realizes
that it isn’t a moment of joy, but one of tragedy. The girl has Down’s
syndrome. Because it’s 1964, it’s impossible to have hope for this little girl.
Henry believes she’s doomed; her future offers nothing but grief. So he does
what he sees as the only thing he can, the logical and compassionate thing:
Phoebe is born with Down’s syndrome-a debilitating disease in the 60’s when it
was almost unheard of. He is shattered and does not want his lovely wife to go
through the trauma of bringing up such a baby and so asks Caroline Gill, his
nurse to leave the baby in an orphanage. He tells his wife that the little girl
died.
Caroline is in love with the doc and drives through thick snow to leave the
baby but can’t muster the courage to do so. When she gets back she hears about
the funeral and goes there. The priest reads out-"*For the things that
are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal!*’ These
words actually struck a chord in my heart.
I lost a baby when I was 19 and I was told that I was crying all through the D
& C. But soon I had my son in my arms and I forgot all about the baby I
lost. Norah has a healthy Paul in her arms and one baby is enough to make you
forget the rest of the world.
Norah pulled her son into the warm curve of her body, opened her nightgown.
His small hands fluttered against her swollen breasts like moth wings; he
latched on. A sharp pain, which subsided in a wave as the milk came. She
stroked his thin hair, his fragile scalp. Yes, astonishing, the powers of the
body.
But she keeps on harping about the baby she lost and that makes the doc
feel guiltier than ever.
These two decisions are at the core of Kim Edwards’ debut novel, *The Memory
Keeper’s Daughter*. The book leaps from that moment to other parallel
moments in the lives of twins Paul and Phoebe, and those involved in the choices
that made those lives so very different. There’s a spiraling structure, each
moment that’s revealed moving us closer to the character’s interiors, until
you’ve wound your way into their cores. Each time that Edwards chooses to show
us, there are echoes of those decisions, reflections upon them, leaving the
reader to deduce the causes and effects that have lead to each scene.
One gets the sense that the question Edwards was asking when she wrote this
book was "how could anyone live with himself if he did this?" The
answer she seems to come up with is, not very well. From the moment of the
birth forward, all of David Henry’s success is superficial. His relationships,
with the lie at their core, are doomed. His marriage is doomed. His son is
foreign to him. Meanwhile, his former nurse, Caroline, only comes to life with
her decision to save Phoebe. The two parents are a study in opposites. As one’s
life grows colder and smaller, the other’s blossoms into a full blown life of
freedom and extra-marital affairs. Norah is nothing but a drifter searching for
something elusive-the hippie culture…free spirit.
The imagery is poignant though. Norah in the school playground sees….”*A
candy wrapper flashed, pin wheeling, across the overgrown spring grass and
caught in the flaming pink azaleas.”
Caroline is the book’s most fully realized character, and the happiest and the
luckiest. She is the heroine, in a mythical sense, someone modeling good
behaviour to us all. She forms a grassroots parents’ activist group, and they
take on the school board to have their children mainstreamed.
Norah gives him a camera, and he begins to view the world through the distance
of its lens. Before he opens the gift, he makes a plea to his wife: *"Please
don’t be sad. I didn’t forget, Norah. Not our anniversary. Not our daughter.
Not anything." *It’s the closest theyever come to understanding one
another, and one of the few glimpses we get of how deep David’s heartbreak must
go.
Paul grows up to be a teenager with the regular adolescent rebellious attitude
towards his parents. Once he walks on the tracks with his friend Duke and both
of them jump off at the last second a la Aamir Khan.” What a rush!” Duke
says. Duke asks him to smoke weed and while he is stoned, Paul thinks about his
twin and whether she would run or sing like he did.
David writes to Caroline and asks about Phoebe and their lives, apologizing at
the same time. Caroline replies, ”* You missed a lot of heartache, sure. But
David, you missed a lot of joy.”
Once David dies, Caroline tells Norah about Phoebe and Paul, the gypsy, turns
around to be the protective brother and settles down close to his sister.
Edwards’ book reminds us of what it is to be human. While it is not without its
flaws, and though it is often deeply sad, it is a life-affirming story, a
reminder of the risks and the limits of love.