Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
NEW 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.
"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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Community Reviews
Dani Shapiro, an established writer in her 50s, decides to do one of those DNA kits, at the prompting of her half-sister. The results come back, showing they're not sisters -- not half, just... nothing. She's confused, but thinks there must be some mistake. This woman -- who always felt a little like she didn't belong, growing up in her Orthodox Jewish family, looking like no one else, and being constantly reminded she didn't "look Jewish," who never felt connected to her half-sister, who ignored many clues along the way about how she was conceived -- is shocked and devastated to discover that her father, whom she loved and idolized, is not her father. She suddenly feels like she doesn't know who she is anymore. She had had a tortured, difficult relationship with her mother and, when she was younger, used to fantasize that her real mother was someone else. So this just adds another layer of pain onto this hard truth.
SPOILER PORTION: I know there are so many stories like hers, but because her biological father was a sperm donor, I was inclined to feel differently about her story, initially: Well, so? There was no betrayal, no affair, no deep dark secret. This was a cold, impersonal transaction. It brings up all kinds of questions, though -- different angles on the usual themes -- like what makes someone a parent? How much does genealogy bind and bond? What/who makes us who we are?
Clearly her biological father was thinking the same things when she found him (shockingly quickly!) and he was hesitant to meet her at first.
I thought she put it best in this one passage: "I kept looking over at Ben and then away. Father. He didn't feel like my father. He hadn't raised me. We'd met hours earlier. So who was he to me -- and I to him? Biological. Social. Later, it will occur to me that Ben Walden felt, to me, like my native country. I had never lived in this country. I had never spoken its language or become steeped in its customs. I had no passport or record of citizenship. Still, I had been shaped by my country of origin all my life, suffused with an inchoate longing to know my own land."
Those of us who know who our parents are, who know where we came from, will never really understand what this must feel like, to learn, at any age, that your roots are somewhere out there, unknown to you.
[ASIDE: I also signed up for 23andme awhile back. Just for fun.
Interestingly enough, last week, as I was in the midst of reading this book, I was contacted by a woman who shows up as my 3rd cousin. She found out at the age of 49 that her dad wasn't her dad. And like the author, her parents are long dead so she can't even ask questions. She wants to find her biological father. Unfortunately, unlike Ms. Shapiro, whose father turns out to be a successful doctor and a fine upstanding citizen, I fear this cousin of mine might be the offspring of one of our ne'er-do-well cousins. Should I tell her it might be best not to know?? :-0 ]
SPOILER PORTION: I know there are so many stories like hers, but because her biological father was a sperm donor, I was inclined to feel differently about her story, initially: Well, so? There was no betrayal, no affair, no deep dark secret. This was a cold, impersonal transaction. It brings up all kinds of questions, though -- different angles on the usual themes -- like what makes someone a parent? How much does genealogy bind and bond? What/who makes us who we are?
Clearly her biological father was thinking the same things when she found him (shockingly quickly!) and he was hesitant to meet her at first.
I thought she put it best in this one passage: "I kept looking over at Ben and then away. Father. He didn't feel like my father. He hadn't raised me. We'd met hours earlier. So who was he to me -- and I to him? Biological. Social. Later, it will occur to me that Ben Walden felt, to me, like my native country. I had never lived in this country. I had never spoken its language or become steeped in its customs. I had no passport or record of citizenship. Still, I had been shaped by my country of origin all my life, suffused with an inchoate longing to know my own land."
Those of us who know who our parents are, who know where we came from, will never really understand what this must feel like, to learn, at any age, that your roots are somewhere out there, unknown to you.
[ASIDE: I also signed up for 23andme awhile back. Just for fun.
Interestingly enough, last week, as I was in the midst of reading this book, I was contacted by a woman who shows up as my 3rd cousin. She found out at the age of 49 that her dad wasn't her dad. And like the author, her parents are long dead so she can't even ask questions. She wants to find her biological father. Unfortunately, unlike Ms. Shapiro, whose father turns out to be a successful doctor and a fine upstanding citizen, I fear this cousin of mine might be the offspring of one of our ne'er-do-well cousins. Should I tell her it might be best not to know?? :-0 ]
No more secrets. As a person who was of “unknown parentage” (infant adoptee) until I was 43, I related to so much of this book, and therefore devoured it in almost one sitting. Shapiro’s description of dissociation and searching in the mirror for clues to who you are resonated so much with me. It’s a true shame that the “Walden’s” were not willing to publicly accept her, but this story is not over. I can’t wait to hear what happens next.
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