Inheritance

A New York Times Bestseller

'Profound… Shapiro's account is beautifully written and deeply moving – it brought me to tears more than once.' -- New York Times

'All my life I had known there was a secret. What I hadn't known: the secret was me.'

In the spring of 2016 Dani Shapiro received the stunning news that her father was not her biological father. Months earlier, on a whim, she had submitted her DNA to a genealogy website for analysis. The results were astonishing, and revealed that everything she had believed about her life had been a lie.

Shapiro's parents were no longer alive. With no one to turn to, and only a handful of figures on a webpage, Shapiro set out to discover the truth about herself and her identity.

Inheritance is a genetic detective story; a memoir that reads like a thriller. It is a book about family secrets kept out of shame or self-protectiveness; secrets we keep from one another in the name of love. It is a book about the extraordinary moment we live in, where science and technology have outpaced both medical ethics and the capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover.

'Reads like a beautiful, lived novel, moving and personal and true.'-- Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion

'A fantastic writer.' -- Dolly Alderton



'A meditation on what it means to live in a time when secrecy, anonymity and mystery are vanishing. [Inheritance] encapsulates an ethical quandary with which our society has yet to fully grapple.' -- The New Yorker

'Shapiro writes with poetic precision in prose that sometimes sings. And she knows how to tell a story... Fascinating.' -- Sunday Times

'Those who like to insist that blood is always thicker than water should read Inheritance, and let their own hearts slowly and gently expand.' -- Rachel Cooke, Observer

'An intensely personal story, and a beautifully written enquiry into belonging and self. So warm and deft. I envy those yet to read it.