In the spring of 2016\, through a genealog y website to which she had whimsically submitted her DNA for analysis\, Da ni Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biologic al father. She woke up one morning and her entire history--the life she ha d lived--crumbled beneath her.
\n&ldquo\;Inheritance&rdquo\; \;i s a book about secrets--secrets within families\, kept out of shame or sel f-protectiveness\; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. I t is the story of a woman's urgent quest to unlock the story of her own id entity\, 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 extraord inary moment we live in--a moment in which science and technology have out paced not only medical ethics but also the capacities of the human heart t o contend with the consequences of what we discover.
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Dani Shapiro is the best-selling author of the memoirs &ldquo\;Hourglass
&rdquo\;\, &ldquo\;Still Writing&rdquo\;\, &ldquo\;Devotion&rdquo\;\, and
&ldquo\;Slow Motion&rdquo\;\, and five novels including &ldquo\;Black &
\; White&rdquo\; and &ldquo\;Family History&rdquo\;.