This is a book where your emotions will take a change towards the characters depending upon where you are in the book. Not that I have found this written anywhere, I wondered about the title when I got the book. After reading it I came to the view that the title comes from the father/doctor got into photography and how he views the effect of the photographs taken and how to capture effects and focus on them to capture them to be captured again when looked at. It is the story of the daughter of the doctor/husband (MEMORY KEEPER) who spends years trying to capture what he sees and feels with photographs. At least that is what I found.

It is the story of the life of a man and woman that marry as so many do. It starts in 1964, the wife is pregnant. It is winter. The snow is falling. The rate that it is falling makes one know that the roads are not going to be drivable. He doesn’t let his wife know of his past, the poverty he came from, the illness within his family.

The young husband, a young doctor is sitting with his wife that is about to give birth thinking on how they had met and married just 3 months later, whirlwind romance. He was 11 years older than his wife. Her labor started. There is a snow storm and it is going to be a bad one.

They leave to go to the hospital but can’t make it for the birth of their baby. Instead they go to his clinic that is closer with her OB/GYN to meet them there. Snow is getting deeper, the roads worse. Problem is that her doctor is in a wreck and isnt’ going to make it. Ge us ti deliver his on baby.

All goes well and a son is born. He is perfect in every way. The pains start up again and the husband gets a look of concern on his face. He has the nurse to give his wife gas to ease the pain. Another head has crowned and out comes a baby girl. Unlike her brother, she has different physical features – the flattened looking face, the upturned eyes. Mongoloid was the word used back then – now days it is more commonly known as Downs Syndrome.

Unlike the brother, she is taken to another room where the mother will not be able to see if she wakes up. The husband knowing the prognosis of a child born with this problem was considered to be good. A common practice of that time was to instantly put such children in state institutions. He thought back to his own sister, similar problems, early death, the grief of his mother – all never told to the wife, hidden totally from her. He made the choice not to tell his wife. He made the choice to allow her to think the child had died. The effect of this choice would have an effect on all of them for the rest of their life.

This book covers the relationships of all those involved. How they deal with the ‘death’ of the child. How the husband placed up walls to the walls already there that his family saw as him blocking them out – him feeling that he deserved such treatment – how none of them really shared what was within them to each other.

The book covers from 1964 to 1989. It covers the choices that they made and the effect on the relationships with the others. It covers the misconceptions that each had of the other. It covers redemption that can only be found when you come to the point to forgive your own self. It is the story of what turned into two families – one with the child with no birth defects and their relationships – - the life of the one seen as ‘retarded’ by society and prefered to be ignored and the life that she had.

It is a book about love not understood, not accepted, not given, not received – but it is also about the love the basic knowledge that there is love, accepted on different levels learned later on, that love was given but not always understood at the time or accepted at the time given.

It is sort of like a ‘chick flick’ except a book. A good read in that it gives you a chance to view things that you might need to consider in your own life – not as dramatic of course – to consider looking past just your own view, your own emotional point.