Not often can I finish a book in only one day due to work, kids, etc. but I just did…
I started reading Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro yesterday before dinner, and I finished it early this evening.
This is a memoir from an already established writer who (just for fun) sent in a DNA test to Ancestry.com, as many of us have. But instead of finding out an interesting variation from what she expected, she found out her beloved and deceased father was not actually her biological father.
In her 50s and having grown up with a strong family heritage, this information shook her to the core.
“I woke up one morning and life was as I had always known it to be. There were certain things I thought I could count on…After all, it’s impossible to know the future, but we can be reasonably sure about the past. By the time I went to bed that night, my entire history – the life I had lived – had crumbled beneath me, like the buried ruins of an ancient forgotten city.”
dani shapiro
What follows, as she and her husband look for answers and clues, is a detective story, a family drama, and a thought-provoking journey that spotlights nature vs. nurture and puts past choices into the context of recent scientific advances, including readily available DNA tests.
Shapiro writes this experience in a way that feels like we are reading it exactly as the answers and resulting experiences (and there are many!!) are unfolding for her.
This is an extraordinary memoir that I strongly recommend. Just block out your day first!
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oooh, sounds interesting! I can’t imagine finding out your parent isn’t really your biological parent and all that would entail. I might have to check this out. Thanks Leslie!
Let me know if you do!!