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When I read a novel I often underline a phrase that is especially beautiful. This did not happen with The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. But it was only halfway through that I realised that the book had one too many weak descriptions. It took me that long to notice this because the storyline was so gripping.

No wonder book clubs have forced Memory onto the bestseller charts. I am pretty sure that book clubs everywhere were desperate for a novel that told a story in simple terms about a subject members could relate to. Memory is about a child with Down’s syndrome, but it is not a misery memoir. In fact, what Memory is not is at the root of its success with book clubs.

The author, Kim Edwards, heard about a man who gave away his baby, without the mother’s knowledge, because the child was born with Down’s syndrome. Edwards researched the subject and came up with a piece of fiction that is, for all the heartache it describes, uplifting and informative. The book opens in Kentucky but it could just as easily be Ontario or Edinburgh or Canterbury.

This means, whether Edwards meant it or not, that the reader concentrates on the character relationships; there are no political or geographical or historical distractions. And, let’s face it, the prize-winning, ought-to-read novels now are complex affairs, often about events that the average book club member in the suburbs of America or Australia or Europe has no direct experience of.

Memory represents a backlash; an urge to read something about a situation all parents have thought about. What if I had a baby with Down’s syndrome? What if I had a test and could abort? If I kept the baby, how would it affect other members of my family? Edwards takes the commonly asked questions a stage further. Dr Henry has not thought about them at all. He is presented with a daughter whom he believes will die young and he makes a snap decision. It is clear that, had the book been set in 2007, Dr Henry would have known more about Down’s syndrome and would have been less horrified, but his basic prejudice still exists and parents still have to fight to prove that children with Down’s syndrome are all different, not a category.

One of the most powerful scenes in the book is when a nurse offers to withhold treatment for Phoebe, who is in anaphylactic shock after being stung by a bee. Phoebe’s adoptive mother wants to slap the nurse’s face. She loves the girl she has adopted, but to others Phoebe seems a burden who is likely to die anyway, so why not get it over and done with? Such a scene does not have to be written exquisitely; any book club will simply want to discuss its implications and how they would react.

It is that sort of book: “what if?”. Phoebe’s mother is told that her daughter died at birth. Again, this is something that many mothers or would-be mothers have feared or heard of others having to cope with. Is a mother supposed to be glad that she has one healthy child and not mourn the loss of another? Is Phoebe’s mother self-indulgent or understandably distraught?

There is more than a touch of Mills & Boon at work in Memory. A nurse falls in love with a distant, handsome and brilliant doctor. Marriage proposals are greeted with a hand pressed against the man’s heart. It is a novel that is saved by a girl with Down’s syndrome – which is a remarkable statement, when you think about it. People with Down’s syndrome are routinely ignored. These days, this has less to do with fear and more to do with embarrassment. Don’t people with Down’s syndrome hug too much, shout too loudly? I was relieved that Phoebe sulked sometimes; the little girl with Down’s syndrome that I know was as capable of marvellous, feisty tantrums as the next toddler and has fewer as she gets older, just like her friends.

I asked her mother if she had read Memory and she said she did not read books or articles about Down’s syndrome because her daughter is her daughter, not a condition. And that is where Edwards is clever. Memory does not claim to understand Down’s syndrome or to offer advice about it. It offers two, extreme judgments – either that Phoebe will create pain and is better off outside her family or that Phoebe can enrich a lonely woman’s life. Perhaps there is a touch of the fairytale to it but, ultimately, the ending is down to earth.

The discussions at book clubs may be more incisive than Edwards’s prose, but sometimes it is good for a novel to spark readers into life, rather than intimidate them.

THE KEY QUESTIONS

How does Edwards manage to make Dr Henry's rejection of his daughter come across as realistic?

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