Lysistrata's Daughter

I picked this book up at the library a week or so ago, on a whim, because when Mr. A has picked out his books, he's ready to go. Now. Mostly I was just intrigued by the cover and the title. This book is beautifully heartbreaking. It begins in 1964; a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own children. The first child is a boy, perfectly healthy. Then a little girl is born, with Down's syndrome. He hands the girl to the nurse, Caroline Gill, who is assisting him and tells her to take the girl to an institution. Caroline, however, after seeing the institution, cannot bear to leave the child there. So she packs up her apartment and leaves town. David tells his wife that the little girl died shortly after being born. The book follows David and Caroline and the twins throughout the next twenty five years. David and his family slowly disintegrate; the absence of the second child and the wall erected by the lie David tells oppresses them and pulls them apart from on...