Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro 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. It is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own identity, a story that has been scrupulously hidden from her for more than fifty years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history. Inheritance is a book about secrets-secrets within families, kept out of shame or self- protectiveness secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. She woke up one morning and her entire history-the life she had lived-crumbled beneath her.

In the spring of 2016, through a genealogy website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis, Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. What makes us who we are? What combination of memory, history, biology, experience, and that ineffable thing called the soul defines us? “A gripping genetic detective story, and a meditation on the meaning of parenthood and family.” -Jennifer Egan, author of Manhattan Beachįrom the acclaimed, best-selling memoirist and novelist-“a writer of rare talent” (Cheryl Strayed )-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.

Inheritance novel by dani shapiro