An Instant NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES, BOSTON GLOBE, WALL STREET JOURNAL, and NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR according to Elle, Real Simple, and Kirkus Reviews “Memoir gold: a profound and exquisitely rendered exploration of identity and the true meaning of family.” —People Magazine “Beautifully written and deeply moving—it brought me to tears more than … Magazine
“Beautifully written and deeply moving—it brought me to tears more than once.”—Ruth Franklin, The New York Times Book Review
From the acclaimed, best-selling memoirist, novelist—“a writer of rare talent” (Cheryl Strayed)— and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets, comes 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.
What makes us who we are? What combination of memory, history, biology, experience, and that ineffable thing called the soul defines us?
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. She woke up one morning and her entire history–the life she had lived–crumbled beneath her.
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. 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. 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.
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What if the results of your Ancestry.com DNA test reveal you were a test tube baby? Your social father is not your biological father. Your religion is not pure. Some of your relatives are really not. Your half-sister apparently isn’t. You have a first cousin you never heard of. Your mother has made vague, off-hand comments throughout your life. To boot, you don’t look anything like anyone in your family, which has invited comment and wonder.
In this memoir, the author shares her journey of discovery: testing for fun, disbelief at the results, phone calls and social media for contact, archived newspaper articles and Google for research, emails for reaching out. Leaving the author bewildered, grateful, and open to the people who began to contact her—relatives she never knew she had— she still hopes for word from a half-brother or half-sister, maybe out there searching and/or unaware of the secret Dani Shapiro uncovered.
At fifty-four years of age, living in Connecticut, Dani and her husband lightheartedly spit into a vial to mail to Ancestry.com for DNA testing. Two months later, the test results revealed that Dani was not the pure bred Orthodox Ashkenazi Jew she believed herself to be. After disbelief, shock, and anger, Dani and her very supportive husband, Michael, accepted the fact that Ancestry.com does not make mistakes.
Dani, being a writer and educator, and Michael, being a journalist, were both adept at research. They tracked down the (now closed) Farris Institute for Parenthood on the campus of Penn State University in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania. Further research and interviews led them to the truth: Many doctors and medical students at this facility donated their own sperm which was mixed with the sperm of husbands with low sperm counts, and therefore, fathered countless children, of whose existence they were unaware. Knowledge of this practice was kept from the fathers to protect their feelings and acceptance of their wives’ pregnancy results. The donors were promised anonymity and privacy. It is most likely that the mothers knew of this deception. If it were not for scientific advances in DNA testing, the likelihood of discovery was slim.
“One article I came across was a widely circulated 1958 wire service story that appeared in newspapers such as The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and The Tampa Tribune:(excerpt)
Test-Tube Baby Practice Grows; Now 30,000 in U.S.
Some 40,000 American children owe their start in life to test tube science.
Dr. Edmond Farris, director of the Institute for Parenthood in Philadelphia, said in an interview that even his estimate of ‘30,000 to 40,000 test tube tots’ may be low. No one really knows exactly how many test tube children there are in the U.S. because there is no law requiring doctors to report on this practice.”
Both parents are now deceased. The real heartache for the author is that her beloved father, her social father, is not her bio-father after all. It was his love and encouragement that sustained her throughout her life. Her mother, aloof and critical, was not the one who made Dani feel loved and accepted. It is being fragmented from him, that hurts the most.
The cover nags at me. An empty dress, so sad, like seeing lost, empty shoes. A girl without substance? Without identity? Without her heart-felt father? Beautifully written, the author’s soul is gently revealed.
What happens when the tectonic plates of your life shift, a shifting of seismic proportions? If you are a writer, you write a book about the experience! And that’s exactly what memoirist and novelist Dani Shapiro did. Early in her latest book entitled Inheritance (2019), she reveals one crucial answer to the puzzle of her origins. In doing so, she implies that there may be fewer than six degrees of separation between herself and the revelation of her true paternity.
The memoir’s subtitle: Genealogy, Paternity, and Love could also read: Orthodox Jewish girl finds an altered life story. For Shapiro, who experienced a bat mitzvah, could recite the Shabbos and speak flawless Hebrew, finding the truth of her ancestry through a simple DNA test sent the trajectory of her life into a dizzying path of discovery.
In fifty brief chapters, Shapiro asks, “Who was I without my history? A compelling question that hangs over the narrative. Her discovery of “other” (non-Jewish) components in her DNA (48 percent, mind you!) was not a complete surprise. Gazing into a mirror as a child, she wondered at her coloring and face shape. “I had spent all my life writing my way through darkness like a miner in a cave until I spit into a plastic vial and the lights blinked on.”
When Ancestry.com gave proof of her genetic imprint as 52 % Ashkenazi Jew and 48% Anglo-Saxon, French, and Italian, her life goes into a tailspin. “For a while, I began “to seesaw between painful clarity and incomprehension about my entire history,” a history she recalls which included remarks about her blonde hair and fair skin in a family of dark-complexioned relatives.
Who in her family knew about the sperm donor to whom she was linked genetically? Her parents had died long ago, but her search for truth led to her beloved Aunt Shirley who told her that the “confusion about the identity of her biological dad can be a door to discovering who a father really is.
In the end, she concludes, that although she had been fathered by a sperm donor, a medical student in the 1960s, she would forever be related to the man who raised her, Paul Shapiro, connecting to him on the level of neshama, which had nothing to do with biology but everything to do with love.”
She celebrates her transformation from disbelief into acceptance with a tweak to her given first name (possibly her Christian name!) and a delicate tattoo, giving visible evidence of the pain of inheritance and the renewal possible in spite of a disorienting discovery.
I read Dani Shapiro’s latest book in one gulp. Why? Not simply because it was a compelling revelation of the possibilities and impact of genetic science. But it is one woman’s story, a fascinating narrative, which poses profound questions, Where did I come from? Who really am I?
This is so articulately written… Shapiro is a true researcher of her personal identity & heredity. In this age of sites and tools like ancestry.com, when folks are interested in their roots and genetics, this is a must read.
I have read all of Dani Shapiro’s books, however, I listened to this one. It was wonderful as it was narrated by her telling her own story. She also has an amazing podcast called Family Secrets. I can’t wait for Season 3 which starts on 8/19/19. Excellent book….highly recommend.
I found myself falling into this story and unable to turn away. Very much a nature vs nurture type of story, Ms Shapiro has woven the story of her own uncertain identity – the result of a secret invitroization – with that of her ultimate vulnerability and acceptance of who she is. A marvelously well written memoir that challengers the reader to ask, Who am I? and to come away with a sum that is greater than to total of all we know about ourselves.
As a genealogy buff, I loved this story of discovering the narrator’s personal history. The story revolves around the author’s investigation of her origin. It is full of twists, turns, and lots of surprises. It also demonstrates her courage and tenacity as she investigated her past. The story is very personal and I found myself unable to put it down.
I’ve read most of Dani Shapiro’s memoirs, so I knew I couldn’t wait to read Inheritance. Reading it reminded me of why I admire her as a writer. She does such a beautiful job of conveying research and emotion, of bringing the reader right along every step of the way. She is unflinchingly honest in describing relationships that others might sugar-coat. She is a wonderful story-teller. In this age of Ancestry.com, I’m certain this book will be relevant to others, as well.
When I first heard about Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro, it was months before its release and when I went to her Bay Area talk I knew I’d eventually read it, but for some reason it took me awhile to find the right time for me to do so. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe because I felt like I already knew the story and the quest. I didn’t know the exact details, but in a weird way it all felt familiar to me. The basic story: Shapiro grows up in an Orthodox family. She’s super close to Dad but not with Mom. After both parents are deceased she takes a DNA test and discovers she isn’t exactly who she thought she was. The rest of the book is her quest to discover how a history she didn’t know made her, ultimately shaped her, and how what she discovers upends her identity (or at least causes her to significantly question it). She goes down the internet rabbit hole searching for answers and articles, she reaches out to people she thinks can uncover the stories she sort of knows but doesn’t really KNOW, and she tries so hard to put the puzzle of it all together. So, yes, her story is about genealogy and family and my Chasing Portraits story is about art and war and loss, but it’s all these things too. My research didn’t put my DNA into question but it forced me to face issues about what it means to be Jewish and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and what responsibilities I have to that history versus trying to decide how to live my own life.
I guess I not so secretly wish that Shapiro would read my book. I think we might have an interesting discussion about what it means to dig into the past.
Dani Shaipro’s Inheritance brings her real life experience to life with precise description and evocative emotions. She plunges into her own story, but raises though provoking questions for people who have had, or who are currently considering, donor insemination and the myriad of issues that come with such a decision. I was transfixed, and found myself staying up far too long because, while a memoir, it is a “page turner.”
Quite a moving book. I loved the book. I had read an article by Dani Shapiro in the New Yorker magazine. Since then, I wanted to read Inheritance.
Loved this book and its exploration of the quandary of identity. I am particularly drawn to birth stories and how they shape a person, and in this case threaten to un-shape a person. Dani Shapiro is a master of taking a personal revelation and making it something more universal. This is an issue of our current age. The uncovering of previously unknown biological attachments is happening all around us. As I was reading Inheritance I thought of so many people I need to send it to – people who are going through similar things thanks to 23 and me or Ancestry.com.
If you love speculating family secrets, you will love Inheritance!!
I loved this book. Memoirs can be tricky, by Dani Shapiro is excellent at bringing us along, and stirring us to look at our own lives and beliefs.
Dani Shapiro is transcendent and I was fortunate to hear her read the early pages of Inheritance. This new memoir is her greatest work.