What do You think about The Memory Keeper's Daughter (2006)?
The book begins in 1964. A doctor delivers his own wife’s son, and to his own surprise, their son’s twin sister as well. From her physical features, the doctor recognizes the child has Down’s Syndrome and to protect his wife from the grief of having a child die early (common for Down’s children back then) since he and his own family had to deal with the death of his sister when she was young, the doctor hands the child over to his trusted nurse and instructs her to take the child to an institution nearby. The doctor then lies to his wife and tells her their daughter died at childbirth. Instead of delivering the child to the institution, however, the nurse instead runs off with the child to raise it as her own. The rest of the book’s plot hinges on these two fateful decisions: the doctor’s choice to give up his daughter and lie to his wife, and the nurse’s decision to raise the girl as normally as possible. Note to self: if a book’s author is a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, put the book down and walk away. This book is as cliché as they come – not just in the plot and the characterizations, but also in the prose. The plot sets itself up for ongoing tension between the characters due to their past decisions, and then allows all of the characters to redeem themselves at the end. The characters are stereotypes: the noble doctor struggling with a past decision motivated by his past grief; the unsatisfied grieving mother who finds solace in other ways; the noble mother who raises a disabled child to prove that everyone deserves equality. It’s like the Iowa Writer’s Workshop deliberately teaches its students to dream up plots worthy of an Oprah’s Book Club Selection. My biggest grievance is that Edwards overwrites every scene. We understand that the characters all have made decisions they regret, and that their pasts inform their present and future actions. We actually don’t need the narrative to spell that out for us in EVERY SINGLE SCENE. We also understand symbolism: early on, there is a scene where the doctor’s wife destroys a wasp nest to prove to herself that she is capable and able to handle things herself without having the doctor protect her and control her – and yet the author has to point that out to the reader, that the wife felt capable and felt like she didn’t need to be protected any longer. Apparently, Iowa doesn’t teach Subtlety as a course offering. Pass on this, unless you have no sense of discernment and like trite stories.
—Tung
This was a fairly emotional read, and I found myself sympathising with the characters at some points, and hating them at others. I think the only character I actually liked the whole way through was Al. The other characters ranged from not liking them at all (Paul), to mostly sympathising, but not completely (Caroline).I think the way that children with Down's Syndrome were treated in 1964 was scandalous. I was appalled at how they were automatically thought less of and sent to an institution. I grew up in the same class as a boy with Down's Syndrome, and although he was slower than the rest of us at learning (he'd been held back a year at school) he was one of the nicest people you could meet. I therefore found they way Phoebe was treated quite upsetting. I think that the writer did a very good job of putting across just how difficult it was to fight for the rights of a child with Down's Syndrome in those days.I tried hard to like David, I really did, but after telling his wife initially that their daughter had died, he had lots of opportunities to come clean and redeem himself but he never did. I just couldn't forgive him for that.I loved the descriptive style of the author's writing. I could imagine everything down to the smallest details and almost felt like I was there. Usually I'm not a fan of this much description, however I felt it worked really well in this book.The characterisation in the book was wonderful. Whilst I may not have sympathised or liked all of the characters, they were all built up really well, so that you could at least understand them and their motives. They were by no means flat - in fact quite the opposite. David especially is a very complex character, who is constantly evolving throughout the book.I liked how the story followed both sides separately... I felt that the interjection of Caroline and Phoebe's story gave a happier tone to an otherwise fairly depressing depiction of the Henry's journey. I felt that the story was a fair assessment of what the consequences of such a huge lie can mean to all of the people involved.I enjoyed this book, and couldn't put it down, although I did feel that some of it was a little too coincidental and parts didn't make sense. Also Norah's story dragged on a bit too much for my liking. These are the reasons why it only has 4 stars.
—Kirsty
At first I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why I was not enjoying a book that sounded as though it would be ‘my kind of book’ in every way, but the more I read and the more I thought about it, the more reasons emerged.tFrom the beginning of the novel there were little details that bothered me. The plot often felt contrived, as pieces fell together too nicely. Of course life is crazy and there is always the possibility of the little pieces falling in the most peculiar way, but when all of your characters’ lives seem to follow that incredible pattern, it begins to feel ridiculous.tSome of the characters themselves also became clichés. Perhaps I reached a certain point in the story where I began to look for things that bothered me and therefore found them more readily than other readers. Yet, Norah, the mother of the twins, and her sister, Bree seem to never really develop. Bree is the young, free-loving free-spirit who is thus almost a danger to Norah’s thoughts on life – and that is what she remains, even when older and diagnosed with cancer (although Norah does come to appreciate her). Norah, whose life unravels for a bit after she thinks her daughter has died, drinks too much and then begins having affairs, and this is who she remains for most of the novel. The characters just seemed too much like a sappy Lifetime movie for me to really take them inside of me and keep with me.tI was also very disappointed in the character of Phoebe, the Down’s syndrome daughter given away by her father. She was the driving force of the novel and yet we really never know her other than glimpses through the eyes of Caroline. Paul, her twin brother, is given thoughts but Phoebe’s mind remains a mystery. I understand the difficulty in writing honestly for a character with Down’s but I kept thinking of the autistic narrator in Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time who was so rich and incredible and believable (if you haven’t read this one, please do!!). I just thought that Edwards had a mission in humanizing those who suffer Down’s syndrome; and that she herself undermines her purpose with the complete omission of Phoebe’s voice. I wanted to know this child as a child and not as a sad plot device. In all fairness, however, I have to say that I did love certain passages, as Edwards’ poetic language captured me wholly.tIn the end, I think that my largest issue with this book was the absolute destruction of this family. I know that what happened at the birth of the babies was tragic and life changing but I felt as though it was a bit contrived that it drove every emotion and interaction afterwards for the remainder of the characters’ lives. Perhaps, for me, it just made their bonds from the beginning suspect as their destruction was made so inevitable by that one tragic mistake. I didn’t believe it and perhaps, because we read to understand others and to change ourselves, I do not want to believe it.
—Heather
