The Memory Keeper's Daughter

1964
March 1964
I

THE SNOW STARTED TO FALL SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE HER labor began. A few flakes first, in the dull gray late-afternoon sky, and then wind-driven swirls and eddies around the edges of their wide front porch. He stood by her side at the window, watching sharp gusts of snow billow, then swirl and drift to the ground. All around the neighborhood, lights came on, and the naked branches of the trees turned white.

After dinner he built a fire, venturing out into the weather for wood he had piled against the garage the previous autumn. The air was bright and cold against his face, and the snow in the driveway was already halfway to his knees. He gathered logs, shaking off their soft white caps and carrying them inside. The kindling in the iron grate caught fire immediately, and he sat for a time on the hearth, cross-legged, adding logs and watching the flames leap, blue-edged and hypnotic. Outside, snow continued to fall quietly through the darkness, as bright and thick as static in the cones of light cast by the streetlights. By the time he rose and looked out the window, their car had become a soft white hill on the edge of the street. Already his footprints in the driveway had filled and disappeared.

He brushed ashes from his hands and sat on the sofa beside his wife, her feet propped on pillows, her swollen ankles crossed, a copy of Dr. Spock balanced on her belly. Absorbed, she licked her index finger absently each time she turned a page. Her hands were slender, her fingers short and sturdy, and she bit her bottom lip lightly, intently, as she read. Watching her, he felt a surge of love and wonder: that she was his wife, that their baby, due in just three weeks, would soon be born. Their first child, this would be. They had been married just a year.

She looked up, smiling, when he tucked the blanket around her legs.

"You know, I've been wondering what it's like," she said. "Before we're born, I mean. It's too bad we can't remember."

Kim Edwards is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Memory Keeper s Daughter, which was translated into thirty-eight languages.  She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling novel, The Lake of Dreams, and a collection of short stories, The Secrets of a Fire King.  Her honors include the Whiting Award, the British Book Award, and USA Today s Book of the Year, as well as the Nelson Algren Award, a National Magazine Award, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.  A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, she has taught widely in the US and Asia, and currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

"Edwards is a born novelist." --"Chicago Tribune"

Edwards is a born novelist....The Memory Keeper s Daughter is rich with psychological detail and the nuances of human connection. [An] extraordinary debut.
Chicago Tribune

Anyone would be struck by the extraordinary power and sympathy of The Memory Keeper s Daughter.
The Washington Post
 
Absolutely mesmerizing.
Sue Monk Kidd
 
Kim Edwards has created a tale of regret and redemption... you have to reread the passages just to be captivated all over again . . .  simply a beautiful book.
Jodi Picoult
 
Kim Edwards writes with great wisdom and compassion.... This is a wonderful, heartbreaking, heart-healing novel.
Luanne Rice
 
A heart-wrenching book, by turns light and dark, literary and suspenseful.
Library Journal 
 
A gripping novel, beautifully written.
Ursula Hegi
  Gripping from its start. Highly accomplished.
The Guardian (UK)
 
A remarkable achievement. [Kim Edwards has] clearly hit a nerve.
The Independent (UK)
 
Masterfully written a compelling story that explores universal themes: the secrets we harbor, even from those we love; our ability to rationalize all manner of lies; and our fear that there will always be something unknowable about the people we love most.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 
  I devoured it.
Sena Jeter Naslund