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READING THE MOVIE | THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER BY KIM EDWARDS



MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER


On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. 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.



It's a snowy, winter night in Kentucky in 1964 when the wife of Dr. David Henry goes into labor. He drives through the unusual amount of snow for the area, eventually getting her to the hospital only to discover that Mrs. Henry's obstetrician is unavailable. Though his specialty is actually in orthopedic medicine, Dr. Henry makes the decision to deliver his own child. To his surprise, he gets two for the price of one! The first born, a son, is perfectly healthy. The second, a daughter, Dr Henry discovers is severely underweight and has clear indicators of Down Syndrome. With his wife under heavy anesthetic and unaware of the second birth, Dr. Henry makes the decision to pass his daughter off to the attending nurse, asking her to bundle the girl up and take her to a nearby institution that takes in such cases. When his wife comes to, Dr. Henry tells her that a daughter was born but immediately passed away. 

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The nurse initially complies with the doctor's instructions, but once she sees the institution in person, she is compelled to take the girl, named Phoebe, and raise her as her own. As the months pass, Norah Henry, the doctor's wife, finds herself deeply grieving for the daughter she never got to know or even see. She insists that a memorial be held to help her with her grieving process. The idea makes Dr. Henry nervous because he fears the truth slipping out somehow. He gets wind of the nurse's secret, goes to visit her, and when Caroline herself (the nurse) starts to fear the truth is only a breath away from slipping out, she decides to pack up her new life with Phoebe and move to Pittsburgh. The story then becomes a split tale of how these separated twins grew up in their respective environments and how, over time, the way life unfolded had them being pulled back toward one another. 

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I felt compelled to pick this up after reading In A Different Key, which in part addressed some of the decisions based on fear of the unknown, when it came to the treatment (in some cases, meaning institutionalization) of patients with autism. While The Memory Keeper's Daughter addresses similar themes, though here done through Down Syndrome, I had mixed feelings about the writing. Edwards definitely showed commitment to environment building, I'll give her that. The way she set up scenes made it easy for me to perfectly picture all the little details of homes or other buildings of the era covered (this story runs from the 1960s through the 1980s). At times that was great, then other times the passages just got TOO laden with descriptors, to the point where I just wanted to holler OOKAAAY, I got it! It was these periodic moments of heavy-handedness in the writing that, for me, really dragged down the pace of the story. 

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I also don't feel like I made a strong attachment to any of the characters, though I did enjoy some of the interactions. I liked reading of the relationship Caroline had with her sister, Bree -- their differences in personality, the clashes that sometimes came from that. I also enjoyed reading the unusual meeting of Caroline and the truck driver Al, and how that relationship developed. Good guy, that Al :-) But sadly, by the end, everyone was kind of forgettable. I also realized not all that much happened plot-wise. Except that scene with the wasps. Dang! That was unexpected. But that was maybe the scene that showed the strongest sign of having a pulse out of anything that happened. 

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I liked the premise of the story and have heard rave reviews of this book for years now. Having read it though, I can't help feeling like the Down Syndrome aspect was used more as a gimmick to lure in readers, because it felt like it was never given much importance here. I went in with the impression that I would get more about how Phoebe grew up, the challenges she faced and overcame, something like that... but her story only seemed to come from brief scenes here and there. There were moments that suggested some of the battles of ignorance and discrimination Caroline and Phoebe fought against, but they were largely only hinted at.

He passed around copies of a report and began doing a cost-benefit analysis. Caroline took a deep breath. It would do no good for her to lose her temper. Caroline thought again of Phoebe, such a loving quicksilver child. A finder of lost things. a girl who could count to fifty and dress herself and recite the alphabet, a girl who might struggle to speak but who could read Caroline's mood in an instant.

Limited, the voices said. Flooding the schools. A drain on resources and on brighter children. 

Caroline felt a rush of despair. They'd never really seen Phoebe, these men, they would never see her as more than different, slow to speak and to master new things. How could she show them her beautiful daughter: Phoebe, sitting on the rug of the living room and making a tower of blocks, her soft hair falling around her ears and an expression of absolute concentration on her face? Phoebe, putting a 45 on the little record player Caroline had bought her, enthralled by the music, dancing across the smooth oak floors. Or Phoebe's soft small hand suddenly on her knee, at a moment when Caroline was pensive or distracted, absorbed by the world and its concerns. You okay, Mom? she would say, or simply, I love you. Phoebe, riding on Al's shoulders in the evening light, Phoebe hugging everyone she met. Phoebe having tantrums and stubbornly defiant, Phoebe dressing herself that morning, so proud. 


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The bulk of the story seemed to be given over to the marital and parenting challenges the Henrys were trying to navigate. Which, frankly, was pretty bland and boring in comparison to what I hoped to get out of this book.

It had its moments that kept me mildly curious enough to keep reading, but I think I will have to pitch in with the reviewers scratching their heads at all the glowing reviews. It was just so-so for me. 


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MOVIE NOTES

The Lifetime Network did a small screen adaptation of this book in 2008 starring Dermot Mulroney, Emily Watson, and Gretchen Mol. But with that cast, no surprise that for being a made-for-tv movie, this show was incredibly well-acted. The script stays pretty true to the book and IMO some of the symbolism from the book actually comes across better on screen. 

The screen adaptation was nominated for a Primetime Emmy as well as several other awards for casting and script writing. 

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