Last night I finished "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards. This book takes place in 1964 and is about a man named David Henry who is a doctor and forced to delivery his first child in a snow storm. It turns out his wife is delivery twins, the first, a son, is perfectly healthy but the second, a baby girl, he can tell right away that she has Down Syndrome. He recalls his childhood, his sister has a heart defect and died at 12 yrs old and how it affected his family, his mother especially. He wants to spare his wife that same suffering so he tells his wife that she died at birth and hands the newborn away to the nurse and tells her to take her away to an institution. The book goes on to share the story of the Dr. Henry, his wife, their son and even the nurse and how that one decision effected the rest of their lives.
I was given this book from my mother-in-law last year and finally have gotten around to reading it! (I have a few others that will be next) I thought the book was pretty good. It's sad and heart-breaking but shows how just one decision can effect not only the person who made that choice but everyone else that it involved with them.
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