I finished “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” late last night after CZF went to bed. I was pretty excited about this book after reading the plot line: Opening on a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son is perfectly healthy, but his daughter is born with Down's syndrome. Since it’s 1964 he makes a split second decision and asks his nurse to take the baby girl away to an institution; all with out the wife knowing. Of course, the nurse cannot leave the infant and instead disappears into another city to raise the child herself. Sadly, the book did not turn out to be all I had hoped for. The writing was so-so, apparently the only description Edwards could think of to describe the eyes of someone with Down’s syndrome is “almond shaped.” Then there was cliche descriptions, about the wind she writes, “it flew like a bird.” Yeah. Anyway. Beyond that I didn’t feel much of a connection to the characters and regularly found myself distracted by her mediocre skills at writing dialogue. All that said, I feel like I should give her some credit, I mean I did read the whole thing over the past three days. The story struck the curious chord in me and I found myself very anxious to find out how everything would come together. For a first novel I would say she did pretty well but I hope that by her next novel gets some amazing reviews by people that I respect otherwise I don’t think I will be picking it up. Has anyone else read it?
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