12. The Memory Keeper's Daughter

During a fierce blizzard in the winter of 1964, orthopedic surgeon David Henry can’t get his wife, Nora, to the hospital in time to deliver their child. The pair makes it to his clinic, where they are met by David’s nurse, Caroline Gill, who helps David deliver his child. A healthy son, Paul, is born, yet Nora continues to labor, and David quickly realizes Nora is going to deliver another child. Putting Nora under anesthesia again, he delivers a daughter, Phoebe, who has Down’s syndrome. Wishing to spare his wife the devastating news, and reliving his pain of losing his sister at a young age, David instructs Caroline to take Phoebe to an institution and tells his wife their daughter died.

When Caroline sees how bad the institution is, she flees Lexington, Kentucky with Phoebe, and goes to Pittsburgh to start a new life. While she and Phoebe flourish over the years, Nora and David never recover from that fateful night. David never reveals his lie to his family, and yet the marriage crumbles, with Paul unable to grow close to either parent.

This book continues to be popular with readers. A favorite among book groups, it raises serious moral and ethical decisions people make in their lives. While an interesting premise, and the fact that it is based loosely on true events, the novel does suffer from a lot of redundancy and like life, true resolution never completely occurs. For readers of Jodi Picoult and Chris Bohjalian.