The Memory Keeper's Daughter

The Memory Keeper's Daughter 

by Kim Edwards

 

 

The Memory Keeper's Daughter starts on a snowy night in 1964 when a doctor delivers his own twins and discovers that one of them, the daughter, has been born with Downs Syndrome. In a hasty decision, he gives the daughter to a nurse to take to an institution and tells his wife the baby died. The nurse raises the daughter as her own. The Memory Keeper's Daughter moves through the years, showing how one decision affected every part of two families' lives.

 

"He'd kept this silence because his own secrets were darker, more hidden, and because he believed that his secrets had created hers."

 

"Her voice, high and clear, moved through the leaves, through the sunlight. It splashed onto the gravel, the grass. He imagined the notes falling into the air like stones into water, rippling the invisible surface of the world. Waves of sound, waves of light: his father had tried to pin everything down, but the world was fluid and could not be contained."

 

"Anything can happen. But what goes wrong isn’t your fault. You can’t spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster. It won’t work. You’ll just end up missing the life you have."

"You can't stop time. You can't capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down."

 

"A moment might be a thousand different things."

"You missed a lot of heartache, sure. But David, you missed a lot of joy."