Here There and Everywhere

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Rember the post Lying Hurts The Liar? In The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, the whole plot revolves around a huge lie, and the toll that protecting that lie takes on the lives of everyone it touches.

in the middle of a huge snowstorm, Dr. David Henry’s wife goes into premature labor and he is forced to deliver her in his nearby clinic because he can’t get to the hospital in the snowstorm. To his surprise, he delivers twins. The boy is fine and healthy, the baby girl clearly has Down’s Syndrome. It is the 1960’s.

He hands the baby to the nurse, and tells her to take the baby to a home for Down’s syndrome children and adults. When his wife, Norah, regains consciousness, he tells her she had twins, but that the girl was born dead.

Meanwhile, Caroline, the spinster nurse, takes the baby to the home, but when she sees the lack of caring in the “care” of the patients, she makes an instant decision to walk away. She keeps the baby. She never goes back to the clinic. She drives away and creates a new life for herself and the baby, a joyful life, the life she was waiting for.

To protect his secret, Dr. Henry maintains a distance between himself and his grieving wife. Norah never gets over the loss of her daughter, and she never gets over the change in her relationship with her husband. She knows something is not right, and no matter what she does, she can’t fix it. For a while she drinks. Later she pulls herself together, gets a job, ends up taking over the business (a travel agency) because she has thrown herself into her work.

The son, the healthy baby, grows up in a family where things are not right. His mother loves him, but is distracted by her grief. His father loves him, but is distracted by the energy it takes to protect his terrible secret. It is a family, but a family whose connections to one another are damaged by the tragic secret.

The discarded daughter, meanwhile, grows up surrounded by love and a family who makes a life out of creating opportunities for Down’s Syndrome children.

Late in the book, there is both some resolution and redemption. Things work out, but I find myself thinking of all the wasted years, years of unhappiness and loss, years of happiness sacrificed, brought about by one great big lie. When you read the book, you understand his reasons, and you know how easily, given the times, you and I might have made the same decision.

I think the doctor would have been happier had he risked telling his wife. He often wanted to. He didn’t.

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May 14, 2007 - Posted by intlxpatr | Books, Communication, Community, Family Issues, Fiction, Generational, Marriage, Relationships, Social Issues, Uncategorized, Women's Issues