The Memory Keeper's Daughter: Section 7

So we’ve come to the end of our journey with “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter”. The book ends with Caroline Gill finally coming and telling Norah about Phoebe and spilling the secret that David had kept for all those years. At first, Norah reacts with anger and it seems justifiable that she lash out because of the pain that Phoebe’s death caused her. I’m glad however, that she was able to reconcile after a while and finally understand that David wasn’t a terrible person and that she has a place in her heart to forgive him. I was more nervous that Paul wouldn’t be able to forgive him because he was unfair to Paul. At first Paul was almost angrier than Norah, using this new secret to build more hatred against his father. In the end, however, I think that even Paul managed to forgive his father in his own way by realizing that his mistake was terrible but also done with good intentions and that he had suffered for it all those years in ways that Paul could never understand.

At the end I felt a release of emotion and tension that the story had finally come to an end and that there was a favorable outcome for all of the characters. I still wonder how their lives would have been different with Phoebe. I realize that Norah was traumatized by the news of Phoebe’s death and that this single incident drove her to near madness over the years, but I still wonder if she could have kept it together even if she had Phoebe. She seemed so unstable to me, drinking and driving binges, scandalous affairs and slumps of depression, that I’m not sure she would have taken care of Phoebe with the same loving way that Caroline and Al were able to. Paul definitely would have benefitted however. He would have loved a sibling that he could connect with, seeing as he was unable to really connect with either parent.

Since this is the end of our reading, and I haven’t gotten any feedback, I’m not sure what I’ll write about next or how I’ll blog about it. Hopefully I find a book that’s equally as interesting and debatable as this one. All suggestions are appreciated!

For more information you can visit this site for more discussion questions and a chat with the author.

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/memory_keeper.html

I also found that Lifetime Movies did a film adaption of this novel and it received generally positive reviews, so that might be something to check out as well.

Happy Reading!