More Information & Critical Reviews
A brilliantly crafted, stunning debut, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter articulates a silent fear close to every parent: What would happen if you lost your child, and she grew up without you? Rich, compulsively readable, and deeply moving, the novel explores the way life takes unexpected turns, and how the mysterious ties that hold a family together help us survive the heartache that occurs when long-buried secrets burst into the open. Yet it is also an astonishing tale of redemptive love.
Kim Edwards was born in Killeen, Texas. She grew up in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and attended Colgate University and The University of Iowa, where she earned an MFA in fiction and an MA in linguistics. She is the author of The Secrets of a Fire King, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and her stories have been published in The Paris Review, Story, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and many other periodicals. She has received many awards for the short story, including a Pushcart Prize, the National Magazine Award, the Nelson Algren Award, and inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of 1993. Two of her stories were performed at Symphony Space and broadcast on ‘Selected Shorts.’ Kim Edwards received a Whiting Writers’ Award, as well as grants from the Pennsylvania and Kentucky Arts Councils, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, her first novel, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Award pick and became a word-of-mouth best-seller, spending 122 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, 20 of those weeks at #1. Published in more than 38 countries, it was also a best seller in Italy, France, Germany, England, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Holland, and Taiwan. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter won the Kentucky Literary Award and the British Book Award, and was chosen as Book of the Year for 2006 by USA Today. Her new novel, The Lake of Dreams, will be published by Viking in January 2011.
‘Crafted with language so lovely you have to reread the passages just to be captivated all over again… this is simply a beautiful book’ Jodi Picoult
‘I loved this riveting story with its intricate characters and beautiful language’ Sue Monk Kidd, author of the best-selling The Secret Life of Bees
“Edwards is a born novelist….The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is rich with psychological detail and the nuances of human connection. [An] extraordinary debut.” Chicago Tribune
“Anyone would be struck by the extraordinary power and sympathy of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.” -The Washington Post “Absolutely mesmerizing.” -Sue Monk Kidd “Kim Edwards has created a tale of regret and redemption… you have to reread the passages just to be captivated all over again . . . simply a beautiful book.” Jodi Picoult
“Kim Edwards writes with great wisdom and compassion…. This is a wonderful, heartbreaking, heart-healing novel.” Luanne Rice
“A heart-wrenching book, by turns light and dark, literary and suspenseful.” -Library Journal “A gripping novel, beautifully written.” Ursula Hegi
“Gripping from its start. Highly accomplished.” The Guardian (UK)
“A remarkable achievement. [Kim Edwards has] clearly hit a nerve.” The Independent (UK)
“Masterfully written…a compelling story that explores universal themes: the secrets we harbor, even from those we love; our ability to rationalize all manner of lies; and our fear that there will always be something unknowable about the people we love most.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“I devoured it.” Sena Jeter Naslund
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