Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and LoveNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Signal Fires and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets: a memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test, an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love. “Memoir gold: a profound and exquisitely rendered exploration of identity and the true meaning of family.” —People In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had casually submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her beloved deceased father was not her biological father. Over the course of a single day, her entire history—the life she had lived—crumbled beneath her. Inheritance is a book about secrets. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that had been scrupulously hidden from her for more than fifty years. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in, a moment in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover. Dani Shapiro’s memoir unfolds at a breakneck pace—part mystery, part real-time investigation, part rumination on the ineffable combination of memory, history, biology, and experience that makes us who we are. Inheritance is a devastating and haunting interrogation of the meaning of kinship and identity, written with stunning intensity and precision. |
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able Ancestry.com anonymity artificial insemination asked baby bar mitzvah Ben Walden Ben's beneath Benjamin Walden Bethany biological father child childhood cousin Daneile Dani Shapiro daughter David Wolpe dead DeCherney dinner DNA testing doctor donor insemination donor-conceived door Edmond Farris Elul Emily eyes face Facebook fact Farris Institute feel felt genetic going grandfather hair halachah half sister hand Hanukkah happened Hayflick heard Inheritance Jacob Japantown Jewish kids knew known Leonard Hayflick lives looked Lookstein lunch Mark Strand medical ethics medical student meet Michael mother narrative never night parents person Philadelphia photographs Pilar Portland portrait possible Rabbi secret seemed sense Shabbos Shirley shtetl siblings sperm donor staring story Susie tell thing thought told truth trying vials walked wanted Wendy Kramer woman wondered words write yarmulke YouTube