This non-fiction book by Dani Shapiro is the story of her discovery that she was not her deceased father’s biological child, which he probably never knew, in spite of their lack of any physical resemblance. Never close to her mother, and not particularly close to her half-sister (father’s from a previous marriage), who was thirteen years older, she had never questioned that he was also her biological father’s child. She adored him, and was stunned and bewildered, and saddened, to learn, through a DNA test, that he was not her father, and Susie was not her half-sister. The fact that he had dark eyes and skin, while she was extremely light blond with blue eyes, and many people had questioned whether she was actually Jewish or not. Many people have stereotypes in their minds that all Jews are dark, although the truth is that many are just as light as Dani is. Sometime in her adult life, her mother had told her that they had gone to a fertility clinic in Philadelphia, although they lived in New York City, and that they had “treatments,” that “his sperm was slow,” and that “this doctor had a test to tell the exact right time” (ovulation) and that she would go there, then call the husband and he would get on the train and come to Philadelphia as fast as possible.” It was artificial insemination, but in the very early 1960s, such a possibility was rarely talked about, and few lay people had even heard of it. Her mother was never told the details, just that the “treatments” would help her conceive a child, which she ultimately did, and she gave birth to Dani. They were both thrilled to have a child together. Both parents were seriously injured in a car wreck when Dani was 23, and her father died.

Years later, when Dani was married and had a son, her husband had a DNA test and suggested she do the same, to find extended family. Susie did the same, through the same company. When her results came back, she was stunned to read that Susie was not her half-sister, that she was only 52% Eastern European Ashkenzi Jew (her mother’s side) and 48% a mix of French, Irish, English, and German.

The DNA print-out showed a match for a first cousin with the initials A.T. She called Susie, who seemed puzzled but not upset at this. She told herself that the test results had to be wrong, that the company must have switched the vials. Her mother had told her, “It was a world-famous institute in Philadelphia.” Dani’s husband finds “The Farris Institute for Parenthood” existed in previous years on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. He learns that it existed in the 1960s, and finds that they used sperm donors and sometimes mixed sperm with that of the husband. Dani’s husband thinks the donor might have been a medical student, common then, especially as the Institute was on the medical center campus. The Institute is no longer in existence and the doctor is deceased. She recalls the children’s book Are You My Mother, where a baby bird hatches while his mother has gone looking for food, and he asks various animals, even a steam shovel, if they are his mother, and at last, his mother returns and he knows her instantly. She calls her mother’s best friend, but she says she knows nothing about any clinic or treatments. Dani deals with her thoughts and feelings, memories of mother and father. The “A.T.” match shows a Thomas Bethany and later she and her husband try “Bethany Thomas.” She calls a friend who finds that is the name of the wife of Adam Thomas, and that he has an uncle who is a retired doctor named Benjamin Walden, who went to medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in the right years.

The book reads like mystery novel, with many twists and turns as the author learns more, has disappointments and considers the ethics of her search and results. She explores her own identity, which is so different from what she’d always thought. She realizes her family medical history has been only half right. She contacts the probable father, who is stunned and uncertain how to respond, but he does respond. While today, sperm donors know that they might later be contacted, and have more awareness that they are actually contributing the possible makings of a child (or more than one), in that time, men were less aware, DNA was just being discovered and was not understood nor discussed much, even by medical students. There were no releases of confidential information, such common forms these days, signed by everyone.

Over time, Dani has to sort out her own feelings, her concern about how to inform her son that his grandfather was not actually Paul Shapiro, that her son’s aunt is not his biological aunt, etc. The donor and his family also have to deal with their own new information and reality. Eventually, they all learn to accept the situation and learn to see relationships in new ways. This is, indeed, a complex book about complicated situations. It is so well written, so honest, so compelling, that it’s hard to put down long enough to eat or sleep. Both Amy and Barbara recommend it to anyone with an adoption or donor connection, or anyone who is considering taking a DNA test.

This true story by Dani Shapiro, author of numerous novels and memoirs, is a compelling journey of an unexpected search for her personal history after the shocking discovery, \through a casual DNA test, that her deceased and beloved father was not her biological father. I received the book from a neighbor, a friend of mine, and of my birth mother’s in the last months of her life. He is also an adoptive father of children of a different ethnic background than his own. I think it was a gentle reminder that I might consider finding the other half of my own origin story, having not received information about my birth father from my birth mother. I was so fortunate to have known her for eighteen years.

The author’s urgent need to find her footing when faced with the realization that she had no idea who her biological father was, and that she had no idea how to piece her own story back together, because both her parents who raised her had died years before, is entirely understandable. The story is told at a breakneck speed, with brutal honesty about her feelings for those parents and her half-sister (or so she had thought), offers gems along the way from the chaos of the shattering of her life as she had thought it was, to searching, and then putting the pieces of her identity back together.

My own desire to search for my birth father’s identity or family has been tempered by the warmth and love that I’m so fortunate to have from my birth mother’s family, and my hesitancy to submit a DNA sample. Reading Inheritance, however, has given me inspiration to open the door to another portion of my identity.