From Publishers Weekly
Edwards's assured but schematic debut novel (after her collection, The Secrets of a Fire King) hinges on the birth of fraternal twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down syndrome, resulting in the father's disavowal of his newborn daughter. A snowstorm immobilizes Lexington, Ky., in 1964, and when young Norah Henry goes into labor, her husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Henry, must deliver their babies himself, aided only by a nurse. Seeing his daughter's handicap, he instructs the nurse, Caroline Gill, to take her to a home and later tells Norah, who was drugged during labor, that their son Paul's twin died at birth. Instead of institutionalizing Phoebe, Caroline absconds with her to Pittsburgh. David's deception becomes the defining moment of the main characters' lives, and Phoebe's absence corrodes her birth family's core over the course of the next 25 years. David's undetected lie warps his marriage; he grapples with guilt; Norah mourns her lost child; and Paul not only deals with his parents' icy relationship but with his own yearnings for his sister as well. Though the impact of Phoebe's loss makes sense, Edwards's redundant handling of the trope robs it of credibility. This neatly structured story is a little too moist with compassion.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
My first daughter was born lifeless and gray-blue. "Like a seal," I remember thinking as the room went bright white and the doctor started suctioning her mouth. I pushed my wife's head back onto the pillow so she wouldn't be able to see the slick form down below. The oxygen tank hissed angrily. In the minutes that followed, as we waited and waited for my daughter to cry, all the hopes we'd stored up were suffocated under the weight of our new future that filled the room with fear.
Mercifully, few parents experience the shattering birth moment we did, and it may be that memories of my daughter's birth magnified the emotional impact of Kim Edwards's debut novel. But I think anyone would be struck by the extraordinary power and sympathy of The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The book opens during a snowstorm in Lexington, Ky., in 1964, when Norah Henry realizes that she's going into labor. The weather keeps her doctor from making it to the office in time, but her husband, David, is an orthopedic surgeon with enough experience to handle the situation. Under the partial influence of gas, Norah gives birth to a healthy baby boy, but as David tells her the happy news, another series of contractions begins. He quickly sedates his wife again, and she gives birth to another child, a girl with Down syndrome.

"Later," Edwards writes, "when he considered this night -- and he would think of it often, in the months and years to come: the turning point of his life, the moments around which everything else would always gather -- what he remembered was the silence in the room and the snow falling outside." In that quiet, terrifying moment, the grief and resentment caused by his sister's death at the age of 12 washes back over him, and he acts to preserve their vision of a happy future. He hands the baby to his nurse and asks her to take it to a home outside the city for handicapped children. When Norah awakens a few minutes later, he tells her their second baby was stillborn. "He had wanted to spare her," Edwards writes, "to protect her from loss and pain; he had not understood that loss would follow her regardless, as persistent and life-shaping as a stream of water. Nor had he anticipated his own grief, woven with the dark threads of his past."

Edwards has trouble maintaining the electrifying atmosphere of this long opening scene, but David's fateful decision that night is enough to power the novel through the next 25 years. The story runs along parallel tracks that don't converge until the very end: The first follows the picture-perfect Henry family, three healthy, talented people separated from one another by the secret that only David knows. The other track follows David's nurse, Caroline, who couldn't bring herself to follow his instructions that night. Instead, she left town with his baby, struggled through a series of part-time jobs, battled an unresponsive school system and managed to hammer out a joyful life.

As a single mother at a time when special-needs accommodations are unheard of or considered naively radical, Caroline would seem to have a far more difficult path to travel. Edwards does nothing to minimize or romanticize that struggle, but Caroline makes her humble way in the world through sheer determination and with the help of like-minded activist parents who are beginning to argue that children with disabilities should be raised at home and attend regular schools.

Those 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.

Some ominously saccharine moments indicate that Edwards can slip into the treacly trade -- "The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away" -- but these gaffes are relatively infrequent, especially considering the presence of a handicapped character, who would, in less disciplined hands, be used to generate a waterfall of sentimental tears.

The episodic structure allows Edwards to survey these two families through the '60s, '70s and '80s, but frankly she's best when she moves slowly. The middle section skips through the years, obscuring the characters behind Significant Historical Moments: Women's Lib, Vietnam, Disability Rights. The novel begins to look as though it's been planned by a divorced dad: Every alternating weekend encounter has to be packed with a major activity. This structural tendency may be the effect of Edwards's experience as a short story writer. We drop in on these characters only on important days -- separated by years that included all the minutiae of real life. They're reduced to saying things like, "The last few years have meant so much to me." I kept thinking, No, show the true nature of these people on a few ordinary days.

Edwards is entirely capable of doing that, as the opening and closing sections of her novel show. This tragedy of a man who thinks he can control how lives are redirected is as moving as the story of his nurse, who knows that her love can bless a damaged life. In the end, it's not just that David made a mistake in a moment of crisis; it's that he never realized that parenthood is an infinite series of opportunities for redemption. Years after the choice he could never forgive himself, for, as Caroline tells him, "You missed a lot of heartache, sure. But David, you missed a lot of joy." Readers of The Memory Keeper's Daughter will find ample stores of both.

Reviewed by Ron Charles
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

What we prize most costs the most. Prizes--whether enduring relationships, thriving careers, excellent health, or financial wellbeing require time, energy and stamina to win. This book has been crafted to help you identify and overcome the obstacles that keep you from following through, so you can achieve what matters most to you. You will find the ideas in this book practical--rather than theoretical. And you will find the tone encouraging --rather than overwhelming. Together we explore the three obstacles to following through and 21 strategies to overcome them. Any single strategy could be the one that helps you over your hurdles. The first seven strategies will help you exert that uncommon focus so you can achieve your most important goals. The second seven provide fuel for the journey. The final seven help you constructively deal with discouragement so you don't quit, but instead persist until you win your prize!

About the Author
Greg Wingard is founder and CEO of Simple Team Solutions, a performance enhancement firm whose products and services have been used by Fortune 500 clients including Microsoft, Disney, Aflac--as well as thousands of individuals. Wingard also is a compelling, and in-demand speaker, trainer and coach in the areas of personal growth, peak performance, and leadership.

Kirkuk transfers security from Iraqi
Army to Police

KIRKUK – Responsibility for the traffic control point in
Kirkuk was handed over from the Iraqi Army to the Iraqi Police
in a ceremony at the Irbil traffic control point Apr. 14.
The ceremony signified the official transition for overall
Kirkuk security to the police, and marks a critical shift from
Marshal Law to the Rule of Law enforced by the local law
enforcement authorities.
At the ceremony, the Kirkuk governor, Provincial Director of
Police, Emergency Special Unit commander and the 1st Brigade
Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division deputy commander
spoke on the significance of the transfer from the Iraqi Army to
the Iraqi Police. The four-week process of slowly transferring
from IA to IP met its conclusion at the Irbil TRAFFIC CONTROL
POINT as the last TRAFFIC CONTROL POINT transferred to
the IP and the ESU.
–Multi-National Division – North Public Affairs

Culture of Bhutan
For further Details Contact Us

The culture of Bhutan is among the oldest in the world - carefully guarded and well preserved.

PEOPLE: Bhutan essentially has three main ethnic groups: the Sharchop in the east, who originated from the tribes of northern Burma and northeast India; the Ngalops in the west, who introduced Buddhism to Bhutan after migrating from Tibet; and the Lhotsampas in the south, originally belonging to Nepal. The overall population of Bhutan is around 700,000.

Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, is one of the large towns in Bhutan. Farming is the main occupation of the people of Bhutan, who live in small rural villages. Most of these villages are secluded and even in the modern world of today, are accessible only by foot. But some people, with the help of education, are migrating to towns in search of other occupations.

LANGUAGE: Dzongkha is the official language of Bhutan, but many regions in Bhutan still retain their native dialects due to their isolation. Apart from Dzongkha, English remains the only other medium of instruction in Bhutan.

RELIGION: The Tantric form of Mahayana Buddhism is the official religion of Bhutan. It is an important factor in the development of Bhutanese society. Villages in Bhutan are strewn with temples and religious structures, which are present along the roads and trails. One can also see many prayer flags on the hills and high passes, fluttering in the breeze. Almost every home in Bhutan has a special area called a chosum, which is a small shrine, or a special room used for prayers.

ARCHITECTURE: Traditionally Bhutanese houses are made out of mud, bamboo, and wood. The doors and windows of Bhutanese houses are decorated with animal, religious, or floral designs. The houses usually consist of three stories. The cattle and other animals of the house reside on the ground floor, the second floor is for storage, and on the third floor are the living quarters, which often also have the shrine (i.e. Chosum). Hay, dry vegetables and meat are stored in the open-air between the third floor and the roof. The most important feature of Bhutanese houses is the prayer flag placed in the centre of the roof.

Bhutanese architecture is characterized by structural designs and exterior paintwork (shapes, colors, and patterns), representing national identity and traditional meanings. Dzongs (fortresses), Gompas (monasteries), Chortens (shrines/stupas), Lakhangs (temples) and houses are some of the impressive and important structures in Bhutan. Most of the monasteries and temples throughout Bhutan are built on steep hillsides and in other remote places. This ensures that the monks get solitude and serenity. All the monasteries in Bhutan have some common features though they also have their own design. Monasteries here have a central chapel with statues and separate sleeping quarters for the monks. There are prayer wheels around the outside and a round gold-coloured ornament on the roof. Temples are not very different from monasteries in design and look; the only difference between them is that they do not house monks.

DRESS: The national dress of Bhutan originated from the time of the first Shabdrung. The men in Bhutan wear a "gho," a long knee-length robe that is tied around the waist by a belt and the women wear a "kira," which is an ankle-length dress worn with a short jacket. To preserve the ancient customs from being influenced by the West, the Bhutanese government has made it compulsory for all Bhutanese to wear only their national dress in public.

SPORT: Bhutan's national sport is Archery, which is played here with unique Bhutanese rules and equipment. The traditional bows and arrows are made out of bamboo and the teams of archers shoot at targets with amazing precision from a good distance.

FOOD: The Bhutanese diet is rich in meat and poultry, dairy, grain and vegetables. Rice and chillies are the major features of Bhutanese diet. Emadatse (chilly pepper and cheese stew) is considered the national dish with many interpretations of this recipe throughout the country. Poultry and meat dishes, pork, beef and yak, are lavishly spiced with chillies, and it is common to see bright red peppers drying on rooftops in the sun. Salted butter tea, or suja, is served on all social occasions. Chang, a local beer, and arra, a spirit distilled from rice, maize, wheat or barley, are also common and widely favoured. Doma or betel nut is offered as a customary gesture of greeting. The chillies are considered a vegetable and not just a spice. Bhutanese dishes are mostly fiery but uniquely Bhutanese in every sense

The World
Friday, April 4, 2008; A14

THE DOCTOR IS ONLINE

Patients in Ethiopia are benefiting from the expertise of doctors in India. With their patients present, doctors in the Horn of Africa nation are exchanging medical information via the Web and discussing cases with doctors in Hyderabad in live video feeds. The $2.1 million telemedicine project seeks to fill major gaps in Ethiopia's medical system and is similar to one that India is developing for domestic use.

· Ethiopia has one doctor for every 37,000 residents.

· India has one doctor for every 1,666 residents.

· Ethiopia has only one teaching hospital.