Inheritance

All my life I had known there was a secret.

What I hadn’t known: the secret was me.

Inheritance, a particularly interesting and thoughtful memoir, was written by Dani Shapiro, a successful novelist, memoirist and professor of creative writing.  Both her parents were Jewish and her ancestors, on her father’s side, were exceptionally distinguished rabbis and leaders of national Orthodox Jewish associations.  Dani spoke Hebrew fluently, having attended a Joseph Schechter Jewish Day School, a prestigious prep school and then Sarah Lawrence, where she was strongly influenced by Grace Paley.  It’s not a terrible spoiler (it's recounted within the first few pages of Inheritance) to say that Dani was literally stunned and disoriented to discover, through incidental DNA testing, that her father, Paul Shapiro, was not her biological father.  With the help of her husband, Michael Meran, a journalist and screenwriter, Dani quickly was able to identify a person who was almost certain to be her biological father. 

The shocking DNA evidence triggers intense self-searching and quests for understanding. How could her parentage have been so estranged from Jewish law and tradition?  Which members of her family (almost all now deceased) knew the secret of her parentage?  How could she herself, blond and blue-eyed, not have known? 

And, finally, what relationships might develop with her new family and how would she be affected by discovering this whole new side of herself?  I highly recommend this most emotional and thoughtful memoir.

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