It is an astonishing tale of redemptive love. So begins this beautifully told story that unfolds over a quarter of a century in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by David Henry's fateful decision that long-ago winter night.Ī rich and deeply moving page-turner, The Memory Keeper's Daughter captures the way life takes unexpected turns and how the mysterious ties that hold a family together help us survive the heartache that occurs when long-buried secrets burst into the open. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's syndrome. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. Don’t let this dissuade you from reading it.Award-winning writer Kim Edwards's The Memory Keeper's Daughter is a brilliantly crafted family drama that explores every mother's silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? The book is also ill-served by poor proofreading. Unfortunately, there were unforeseen consequences and now Charity has to face her past and fight the fear. When she approaches a hypnotist and friend of a friend, he takes away her horrible and disturbing memories, hoping to let her live a normal life, free of fear. ![]() The writing contains a lot of clichés, repetitions, chat, and explaining which, for this reader, detracts from the narrative’s power. The Memory Keeper is a story of an abused woman seeking relief. Cassie’s developing relationship with Nick seems to belong to another book it might have been more effective if the author had delved more into the growth of Katya’s love for Kolya, a boy in the village, mirroring healing-or not-from survivor’s guilt. It doesn’t take the reader long to realise that Bobby is Katya, but we know from Katya’s chapters what happened, so we wait for Cassie to catch up. A young neighbour, Nick, of Ukrainian descent, translates it. She produces a journal written in Ukrainian, which she wants Cassie to read. The grandmother, a Ukrainian known as Bobby-a corruption of babusya, grandma-has never talked about her past. Cassie, mourning her husband killed in a car accident which rendered their five-year-old daughter mute the previous year, is persuaded to move in with her ailing grandmother. ![]() When Stalin’s men come to collectivise the land and impose terror, the graphic horror presents Katya with impossible choices.Īlternating chapters take place in the United States in 2004. In 1929, 16-year-old Katya and her elder sister live with their parents and farm their land, their life bound by seasons and celebrations in a close-knit community. In the words of a character in this novel: “Everyone wants Ukraine’s fertile soil for their own, and nobody wants to let Ukrainians rule it.” Any book about that country needs to be read, to widen our understanding of what its people have suffered. In Ukraine, an estimated 3.9 million people perished. Have you heard of the Holodomor, the forced famine in 1930s Ukraine? I hadn’t, although I knew of Stalin’s collectivisation.
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