The Memory Keeper's Daughter: A Novel
by Kim Edwards
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Book Reviews of The Memory Keeper's Daughter: A Novel
Book Review: It is Down Syndrome
Summary: 3 Stars
When you have a child with Down syndrome, and find a book that weaves a story with that as a central theme, it seems like you've found a needle in a haystack, or serendipity, or at least a kindred spirit to share the evening with. Perhaps if I'd read the publisher's blurb more closely, I would have thought twice. The accepted norm is "Down syndrome" not "Down's syndrome", and any fact checker for this book ought not to have missed that. Edward Down, the British physician who first described the syndrome in the l860s, does not own it, he merely described it. Note, for example, Tourette syndrome or any of the myriad of named medical syndromes. In 1964, the book's opening date, mongoloid would have been the more common usage. Trisomy 21 is more correct. That being said, this book becomes, to me, an outsider's view of a fictional life that leans heavily on Down syndrome with only a superficial grasp of the syndrome.
Ms. Edwards simplifies so many issues about raising a child with Down syndrome that I began muttering under my breath. It is not such a pleasant world out there. Schools were not mandated to educate our children until the passage of PL 94-192 (even though the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education allowed integration), and even today many districts skirt the issues. Unemployment, despite ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), ranges in the 90% for developmentally delayed people. Sexual abuse in among the developmentally delayed is also in the 80-90% range (you know, they make such dicey witnesses: note the recent child molestation charges against a respiratory therapist at Childrens' Hospital in San Diego -- his preferred targets were the developmentally disabled in a nursing home). Ms. Edwards also seems to confuse sheltered workshops with group homes, but that distinction might only matter to insiders.
So, that being said, I cannot recommend this book with the excitement of the publisher's blurbs. It is ok, and there are some really well written moments, but it was a disappointment to me. Another awkward portion of the book was the parallel universe of photography and the objectification of subject. One gets the feeling that the physician David hid his life and emotions and soul behind his camera. Certainly a more interesting parallel universe would have this orthopedic physician encountering other Down syndrome people in his medical practice, with their plethora of orthopedic problems (take Atlanto-axial instability if you really need some excitement in your life), and have him reflect on the unlived life, the life he gave away, and the lives presented to him. This might have been too painful for the general reader, so the author's very superficial views of complex subjects like photography, twins, and Down syndrome are perhaps more palatable. Living is all about choice in the end, and I would not choose to read this book again, nor would I recommend it.
Book Review: Tolerable but Not Plausable
Summary: 2 Stars
I enjoyed the book enough to finish reading it, but there were times that I found the book to be annoyingly unconvincing, especially the last few chapters. I thought the author handled emotions such as resentment and guilt pretty well. The story line and motivation throughout the book was questionable at best.
(Story Spoilers!) First, I would doubt seriously that a father who is a doctor would actually throw out his Down syndrome daughter. If he had issues about his dead sister from years ago, he would have had to confront those issues head-on while in med school and as a resident. Also, his wife is given no backbone at the start of the story, and then she gradually grows one as a budding business owner and at the same time cheats on her emotionally unavailable husband. I just don't buy it. And, why would a dull-as-oatmeal nurse who has a school girl crush on the good doctor be so overwhelmed with love for the man that she hightails it out of town with his handicapped newborn daughter? Was that fleeting moment when they looked into each other's eyes that fiercely powerful? The author writes in a narrative style, with several POVs, yet the characters tend to blend in with each other. How is it that about 3 characters notice something trivial as the squareness of someone's fingers? Also, she fails to realize that she is borrowing one character's private thoughts or experiences, and blends it in with another character's thoughts down the road. And, are we supposed to be impressed that the wife hooks up with another dullard control freak in the end?
There are also elements of convenience, such as how everyone is immensely successful at everything they touch. The emotionally unavailable doctor is not only rolling in dough with his practice, but also a hit in the photography circuit. There's no way that a busy doctor would be able to develop his craft, print piece after piece in his own darkroom, lecture across the country, and exhibit in all the hot galleries in his time off. The wife is an immensely successful travel agency owner. The son tours Europe as a musician. And the teenage dropout exhibits in a gallery with her papercutouts. Come on, now. These people have time for all that AND can screw up their boring, trivial lives too? I doubt it.
How convenient that 7 or so years after a divorce, the wife has her ex-husband's photographs, worth thousands, all boxed up in his darkroom. Wouldn't he have thought to take those with him when he packed up to go? Or maybe she would have noticed an entire room in her house devoted to his old hobby?
Bottom line, not believable. But I did like some parts of introspection, and some emotional moments did shine above the others.
Book Review: Some like it, some hate it... I'm one of the likers
Summary: 3 Stars
I finished 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter last night' - I am emotionally drained! Such a good read! Many here have commented they found it repetitive and trite. I found that what some claim to be repetitive-ness was actually necessary, to help you realize how constant this 'loss' and 'gain' of a single life impacted so many other people's lives, whether the characters themselves realize it at the time or not.
Also I enjoyed the fact that the ending wasn't a typical 'all loose ends are tied' sort. A major character dies, new and old relationships are changed. While it's not a "happily ever after" ending, it does end on a note of hope and what the future can hold in store for the characters.
This story isn't simply about what happens when you skip a stone across the glass-like surface of a lake. It's about how each individual skip shatters the surface and alters it, blurrs it again and changes it again as the stone moves away from its original introduction to the water.
The story was so quietly poignant and touching - the changing societal and cultural mores of the times is addressed in an almost shockingly flippant matter-of-fact tone - which I think works to slap the reader even more awake as to how just one decision made in one moment begins a series of impacts in numerous lives, for better AND for worse.
While most readers are probably already aware of several of the societal changes in the novel because the changes came before or during our own coming of age, but it was almost painful to me at times to read about what was considered "acceptable" at that time. I stopped counting how many times I got teary-eyed during the passages involving a parent and their well-intentioned deceits to protect their family. I almost dropped the book when a nurse asked Caroline if she was "sure" that she wanted a doctor to address Phoebe's near-fatal bee-sting!
And David's actions are so wrong and yet so right, due to his own past - I love it when it's not 100% simple to empathize with the main character of a book.
This novel also brought some things I discussed at a recent dinner with my girlfriends into focus as well as making me realize why our parents and the older generations do what they do and why - so much of it goes back to what was acceptable and "proper" back in the "old days" when they were our age or younger - it's very hard to change or go against decades of particular thinking that was reinforced by everyone around you.
It's no wonder that divorce, drug/alcohol/physical abuse, therapy/counseling and birth defects *were* treated as such "scandalous" stigmas - thank God that's mostly past-tense this days!
Book Review: Unrelenting Angst: A Real Downer
Summary: 3 Stars
In an intriguing twist on the typical adoption-related plot line, Kim Edwards weaves an engrossing story that reveals the damage secrets and lies can wreak on a family.
The story opens in 1964, as Norah Henry goes into hard labor during the middle of a snowstorm in Lexington, Kentucky. Unable to make it to the hospital in time, Norah's orthopedic surgeon husband, David, delivers the baby, with assistance from his nurse, Caroline.
Heavily sedated during the delivery, Norah doesn't realize that she gives birth to twins. The first is a healthy boy. The second is a tiny girl whom David immediately realizes has Down syndrome.
In a moment of horrified panic that haunts him for the rest of his life, David instructs his nurse, Caroline, to take the baby to "a home."
"This poor child will most likely have a serious heart defect. A fatal one. I'm trying to spare us all a terrible grief," he tells his nurse. He decides to tell Norah that the baby died.
Unable to leave the baby in the home for retarded children, Caroline decides to informally "adopt" her and raise her as her own.
The book follows the two families through 1989, focusing mostly on the very thing David had hoped to avoid: his wife's "terrible grief" over "losing" their daughter, Phoebe.
Norah, wallowing in unceasing pain over her supposedly dead baby, engages in various self-destructive behaviors. David, guilt-ridden over lying to his wife but determined to keep his secret at all costs, withdraws into a silent shell and views life from behind the lens of his camera. Their son Paul, the unwitting victim of his parents' angst, rages at both his parents.
Meanwhile, Caroline and the other twin, Phoebe, establish their own lives in a distant locale.
While eloquently written, The Memory Keeper's Daughter jumps from scenario to scenario, giving us random glimpses into the lives of the various characters. The slow-paced narrative, while thought-provoking, regularly rehashes the same material; I felt as if I was watching an endless film loop replay itself in my mind. Especially disappointing was the fact that the author killed off one of the main characters near the end of the novel. Was this her way of neatly tying up plot twists she was unable to resolve any other way, I wonder?
The story helped me better understand the grief that birth parents experience when placing a child for adoption, as well as the insecurities that adoptive parents in a closed adoption feel. But overall, the narrative offered little hope; little forgiveness; little redemption. And while the ending was hopeful, it left me feeling unsatisfied and just plain sad.
Book Review: Good, If Heavy-Handed At Times
Summary: 3 Stars
I believe that the premise of this book is a really strong, intriguing one. What would happen if, in his desperation to spare him and his wife what he forsees as a life of pain and heartache as parents to a child with Downs (in a time when such children were typically institutionalized), a father makes a split-second decision to pretend that the child was stillborn? How would that one moment in time ripple out to affect the lives of those involved?
I was slightly disappointed when I read this book, but I think my disappointment stemmed from my heart-of-hearts desire for happy endings. Upon reflection, however, I've come to appreciate the author's courage in telling us that no, the ending would probably NOT be a happy one for all concerned. Life takes compromise. No, there really are no fairy tales. Caroline's eventual marriage was not the most conventional or smoothest but it is probably a more realistic and honest portrait of marriage than most "fairy tale" depictions. Yes, the choices we make are usually fraught with feelings that run deep within our subconscious. Yes, there are people who stumble along the road of life but who eventually right themselves, and even if their choices were not the best (as with Norah's affairs for instance), who makes the best choices all the time? But the book made me feel, and that's really important. I wanted to reach out to Norah and David and tell them to stop pushing each other away. I wanted to shake them in those moments when they came so close to each other, when one more word or one more look could have turned everything around but they let the moment pass. Meanwhile, I wanted to hug Caroline and commend her strength both in keeping Phoebe and in making a life for herself. I was a bit of a late bloomer as well, if you want to put it that way, and I know what it feels like to wait for life to start, only to have it thrown at you all of a sudden. Her story gave me hope. The author also shows a strong understanding of human emotion, the intricate web of human strength and weakness. David expected that his lie would spare his wife, when in reality it ripped their lives apart just as keeping the child would undoubtedly have done. Only in this case, unlike if they had kept the child, there was no chance for an eventual mending.
My one big complaint with the book is its constant reminder of that one choice, that instant upon which the lives of these characters pivots, in which David gives up his daughter. These aren't subtle reminders we're given, either. They're full-out, in your face, "in case you forgot, David gave his daughter up" reminders. This got a bit tiresome after a while...after all, how could we forget?