The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

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&rsuqo;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 the fateful decision made that long-ago winter night.

Kim Edwards has received a number of honors, including the Whiting Prize, the Nelson Algren Award, and, most recently, the Kentucky Literary Award for fiction. She is the author of The Secrets Of A Fire King, a collection of short stories that was a PEN/Hemingway Award alternative. Ploughshares, Zoetrope, Anteaus, Story, and The Paris Review have published her tales and articles, which have won a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Fiction and a Pushcart Prize. She currently teaches writing at the University of Kentucky and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. This is her first work, which Barnes and Noble has chosen as a Discover title. Her spouse and two daughters live in Lexington, Kentucky.