The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards

I'd been hearing about The Memory Keeper's Daughter for awhile, but hadn't managed to put it on my reading list until I sat next to a very interesting man on a plane who highly recommended it.  He and his sister had been separated at a young age as a result of divorce.  They didn't reunite until decades later.

Like my seatmate and his sister, the siblings in this story were separated and grew up without each other.  Except The Memory Keeper's Daughter has a few different twists.  In this engrossing novel which begins in the early 60's, the daughter is born with Down Syndrome.  The father, a doctor who delivered the twins, decides that life will be better for everyone if the baby goes immediately to an institution.  He enlists the help of his nurse to deliver the baby girl.  He tells his wife that the girl died.  The nurse, appalled by the conditions at the institution, leaves town with the baby to raise her as her own.

The way each character in the story, the parents, the nurse, the children, live with and without each other is fascinating.  The way they each cope, suffer and love is irrevocably changed by that one act and the ripples it creates.

The chapters are written from alternating points of view and sometimes overlapping timelines.  The writing for the different characters was distinct and easy to follow.  I felt as if I were really in each characters head and felt the story from each point of view.

I have two friends that have daughters with DS.  While I wouldn't call this a "book about Down Syndrome" Edwards does what seems like a good job of telling an honest story of what it can be like to have a child with DS.