An introduction to The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Welcome to the introduction the amazing novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, a story, unlike many and one that I have found to be quite the page turner. Now, before we get into the details of what makes up this novel I thought it would be important to give a quick summary and a detailed introduction of all of the characters, so here it goes!

In order to not give away too many spoilers to my followers who may want to read the novel in the future, I’ll keep the summary short and sweet leaving the important details and removing the intense details the draw in the reader. At the beginning of the novel, we are first introduced to David and Norah Henry who are a young couple who are expecting a child to be on its way. When the delivery finally approaches an unexpected set of twins is delivered, Paul and Phoebe, however, Phoebe shows the classic signs of down syndrome. In the discovery of this information, David decided to give Phoebe to the nurse, Caroline and tell his wife that the daughter died of a heart defect. The story from there goes on to tell the stories of both the relationships of David, Norah and Paul and Caroline and Phoebe. During the novel, both Phoebe and Paul know nothing of one another until the death of David when secrets are revealed.

The main characters that I want to focus on are David, Norah, Caroline, Paul and Phoebe for they are the main characters in the novel. David Henry is the protagonist in the novel, he is the reason this novel comes about because he hides his daughter from the rest of the family, this decision causes him to cover his decisions and lies for the rest of his life. Norah Henry was a happy woman who always found the good in a situation, however when the “loss” of Phoebe occurs her attitude and outlook on life changes completely and she becomes lost. Caroline Gill is the nurse who ends up taking Phoebe in as her own. Throughout the entire novel Caroline believes that she is a hero that saves the Henry’s life by taking a burden of a child away from them, however, she soon finds that it's not the case. Then we have Paul and Phoebe who in some cases are foils to one another. Paul is a young boy who is rebellious and adventurous however is very angry with the world because he sees the failing marriage of his parents as well as blames the death of his sister on himself. The anger and the grief of his sister are quite different than Phoebe. Phoebe is a very happy go lucky, carefree type of girl who sees only the good in people and does not see that it is bad in the world, she is a genuine person and in many cases naive.

As you can see the characters of this novel are somewhat complicatedly intertwined with one another and the relationships between them help develop the characteristics and personality of the character. It is important that we get a general idea of the characters and their relationships with one another before getting into the devices and such so we can understand why everything is structured the way it is.