Best Seller Book Discussion Series: "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" December 4, 2007

The novel hinges on the birth of fraternal twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down Syndrome, resulting in the father’s disavowal of his newborn daughter. A snowstorm immobilizes Lexington, KY in 1964, and when young Norah Henry goes into labor, her husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Henry, must deliver their babies himself, aided only by a nurse. Seeing his daughter’s handicap, he instructs the nurse, Caroline Gill, to take her to a home and later tells Norah, who was drugged during labor, that their son’s twin, Phoebe, died at birth. Instead of institutionalizing the girl, Caroline absconds with her to Pittsburgh. David’s deception becomes the defining moment of the main characters’ lives, and Phoebe’s absence corrodes her birth family’s core over the course of the next 25 years. Discussion leader Cynthia Hanagud shares her insight while discussing this book.

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