Kim Edward’s Memory Keeper’s Daughter is a tragic but assuring novel about the birth of two fraternal twins to a Kentucky-based family in the early 1960s. The boy is born healthy and the girl, with Down Syndrome. The husband, who is also an orthopedic surgeon helping deliver because of a snowstorm, instructs the assisting nurse to institutionalize the girl, but tells his wife that it was a stillborn.
In his mind, still struck by the pain from his sister’s death at age 12, he wanted to protect his wife from loss and pain. His deceipt leads to one dark thread after another in the subsequent 25 years of their lives.
From a Washington Post review: “The story runs along parallel tracks that don’t converge until the very end. The two sets of lives make for a thought-provoking contrast, a study in what really determines a family’s happiness.
With a successful, lucrative career, David can give his wife and son everything, except candor. As Edwards points out — probably too many times — the effort to conceal what he’s done with their daughter poisons the atmosphere of their home with a colorless, odorless gas of deception.
David throws himself into photography, a poignant attempt to freeze perfect moments and crop life just as he wants it. Barred from her husband’s heart, Norah turns to alcohol, then to a series of affairs, trying to deaden or distract herself from a sense of loss she can’t fully understand.”
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
