A few weeks ago after much persuasion by my beloved book reader friend, I began The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards – And I can tell you right now that it was terrible, not because it was bad, but because it was so good: I couldn't put it down until I finished the final pages at 4 in the morning. Argh! Not a good thing, when your alarm goes off at 6.30 AM to get ready for more reading at school

What fascinates me about this book is what it has to say about "secrets.” And how confessing the deepest and most sinful secrets can give more freedom than money or success can ever bring. The basic premise is this- a doctor is forced to deliver his wife's child in the middle of a raging snowstorm. The only complication is that she's actually carrying twins - the first, a healthy beautiful baby boy; the second, a Downs Syndrome baby girl. The year is 1964, when such children are regularly institutionalized - after all, babies like this rarely survive long anyway, and even if they do, their quality of life is marginal at best.

As a doctor, David Henry knows his daughters prognosis full well, and rather than force his young wife Norah to deal with such a tragedy, he makes a snap decision to try and protect her from a lifetime of unspeakable grief. His solution: hand the "defective" daughter to his nurse to deliver to an institution, while he informs his wife of the tragedy - she delivered twins, but her daughter did not survive childbirth. She is dead, gone.

With that simple little secret, the future is inescapably changed, his doom is sealed - unbeknownst to anyone, the nurse flees into hiding to raise the child as her own.

The rest of the book is riveting; I was glued to every passing moment because we get to see firsthand the effects of his fall - on his relationship with his wife, his son, and eventually everyone else around him. It's a tragic book, one that was as compelling in the beginning as it was at the end, because it's not a Hollywood based story with a typical happy ending - it's brutally true to the lives that many of us have experienced ourselves, in some cases, relating to me as a reader on a personal scale.

Something tore at the strings of my heart as a drew closer to the 3 quarter mark of David’s emotional turmoil unfolding in this book, This one ray of hope comes unexpectedly, as David Henry confesses everything - no more secrets - to a young woman with child.
“She cut [paper] and listened. Her silence made him free. He talked like a river, like a storm, words rushing through the old house with a force and life he could not stop. At some point he began to weep again, and he could not stop that either. Rosemary made no comment whatsoever. He talked until the words slowed, ebbed, finally ceased.”
I felt while reading this tears brimming over the walls of my eyes and realized nowadays the way secrets are kept in, or rather, blurted out. Constantly teenagers or young adults find themselves in situations that they cannot control, and talking about it can feel like the world closes in on them and scares them into silence. I found personally conversing with strangers about the issues I constantly face at school, at home, and even with my friends freer flowing than (unfortunately) any of my friends could put me at ease. I discovered within myself that talking to someone detached from your situations feels like the weight of judgement is non-existent, and advice is given not because it’s what you want to hear (which is normally the advice your friends would give) but by someone who has assessed the issue from a distance. This was something that Rosemary did for Daniel, she was his stranger, that single act of honesty from Daniel and the attentive ears of his stranger produced what I believed was the deepest intimacy one could experience- it was not sexual, but relational- with another human being who knows the very worst about him and yet does not reject him for it, like he feared his family would.

Another thought strayed through my mind during these confessions between Rosemary and Daniel, and also Nancy and her estranged affairs. At first read I was unable to draw a line between the two on who was better than the other, and then I found a connection between the two; freedom. Similar to the secrets concept I have stated above the idea of freedom, letting go of any kind of sexual, physical, emotional or mental bond that one may have over you in a way of release. Daniel had the mental and emotional bond of Phoebe weighing him down, and talking to Rosemary- a complete stranger- freed him from the pain he had tried to conceal for so many years. With Nancy, the emotional bond of a child she never knew, and the withdrawals of her husband’s love, desire and nurturing. Relating into our reckless world everyone finds a way of releasing any kind of hidden emotion in a clawed attempt, however feeble, of freedom. This could be in running, swimming, hell even knitting or smoking, my way was writing. Series of short stories, poems, even diary entries where my life was the main character and I was living it both physically and through the paper. It helped me in a way to release everything I am feeling or doing, a way to speak out about everything I live for and if anyone was to read it, my true, honest and brutal thoughts and opinions on my experiences as a young adult.

With the ideas of secrets, freedom and release swirling in my mind, the ending was drawing nearer. With ease I felt an emotional connection with Daniel; concealing secrets from your family and friends that only you live with, and suffer in silence. Until I finished it and dwelled on idea of keeping things in like Daniel, I caught myself wondering “If it didn’t work out for him, how will bottling it up help me?”

I guess in a certain sense, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter has taught me not only that people suffer painfully in silence, but also about finding the right kind of stranger to confide in can be less terrifying than first thought.