The author was in her mid-50’s at this point, and both her parents were already deceased. She and her half-sister shared a father, but when she compared their results, it turns out that the two women were not actually biologically related at all. She’d been raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, and her father’s lineage in particular was practically a who’s who of important people in the Orthodox world. But when she got her results back, she was startled: According to the data, she was only 52% Ashkenazi Jewish, not the 100% she was certain was her correct heritage. Author Dani Shapiro’s half-sister had done DNA testing, and Dani decided to do it as well. With the proliferation of inexpensive testing resources like 23andMe and AncestryDNA, anyone can learn a little bit about their genetic background. The little bit I heard sounded interesting enough to make me want to know more: The author, raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, discovers through DNA testing that the man who raised her wasn’t actually her biological father. I picked up Inheritance on a whim, after a book group friend mentioned plans to attend a talk by the author at an upcoming event.
Timely and unforgettable, Dani Shapiro’s memoir is a gripping, gut-wrenching exploration of genealogy, paternity, and love. 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?
The acclaimed and beloved author of Hourglass now gives us a new memoir about identity, paternity, and family secrets-a real-time exploration of the staggering discovery she recently made about her father, and her struggle to piece together the hidden story of her own life.
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