The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

Genre: Adult General Fiction

As soon as I finished the first chapter of this book, I thought to myself, “Gee, I bet the folks who make Lifetime movies would love to make an adaptation of this.” Lo and behold, there is one.

The father, Dr. David Henry, delivers his wife’s babies, and, upon discovering his daughter has the signs of Down Syndrome, gives her away to his nurse in order to spare them all grief. Or so he thinks. The courses their lives take are marked by subtle tragedies and misunderstandings that stem from this secret David must harbor from his family. All this—in just the first chapter! Edwards has certainly started her novel at a brisk pace, managing to package and gift-wrap poignancy, urgency, secrets and melodrama in the guise of a book about family and love all in the first twenty or so pages.

Meh, but it goes downhill from there. At the deepest point of the ravine, the characters, whom Edwards desperately tries to paint as struggling and sympathetic, fall flat and unconvincing. Norah, the mother and Dr. Henry’s wife, is insipid and volatile even when I give her allowance for losing her daughter. Paul, the healthy son, is more tolerable as a child than as a rebellious adolescent. Caroline, the nurse who whisks the baby girl away, is strong but stiff. Out of everyone, I actually liked Dr. Henry most, though he basically brought these troubles on everyone. He is conflicted and believable, a human being who wants the best for people he loves and who makes mistakes and wrong decisions like we all would. With even his family growing distant, he has no choice but to immerse himself in his clinical work and his passion for photography.

And this was the most clever thing Edwards did in the whole novel: depicting photography as a metaphor for Dr. David Henry’s internal struggles. It brings to my mind a quotation I rather like— “Life is like photography. We develop from the negatives.”

Rating: Could be better