Inheritance

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro
Nonfiction - Memoir
2019 Random House Audio
Read by the author
Finished on February 16, 2020
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

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.

After reading Dani Shapiro's previous memoir, Devotion (which I loved), I was anxious to try this more recent book about the shocking discovery of her paternity. I enjoyed listening to the memoir, and Shapiro does a fine job reading the audio, but it didn't resonate with me nearly as much as Devotion. I grew weary of her search (and incessant whining) for answers from anyone who may have known why her parents not only used a sperm donor, but why they never told her of her true identity. I can only imagine what a shock it must have been to learn that her father was not her biological father, but does it really matter? Obviously, medical histories are important for one's own well-being, as well as that of one's children, but that aside, is it really life-shattering to learn your parent isn't really your parent? If you spent your entire life with them, doesn't that make them your parents?

I didn't love this book, but I keep turning it over in my head and think it would make a great book group selection. There is so much to discuss and so many opinions on both sides of  the debate. How would I feel if I learned my dad wasn't my dad? Would I seek out the sperm donor who was part of my creation and would I long for a relationship with that individual after almost 60 years of life with another "father"? Would I want to search for any half-siblings and become a part of their lives or they mine? Would it be too much emotional drama to inflict on that biological parent (and his family), who would now be in his 80s?

...later, it will occur to me that Ben Walden felt to me like my native country. I had never lived in this country. I had never spoken its language or become steeped in its customs. I had no passport or record of citizenship. Still, I had been shaped by my country of origin all my life, suffused with an inchoate longing to know my own land.

I can appreciate Shapiro's prose, but this memoir annoyed me. It was repetitive and self-indulgent; I lost track of how many times the author mentioned the number of books she's published. I can understand her motivations, but she comes across as narcissistic and the book felt overly wrought with regurgitated feelings of anger, self-doubt and obsession. Meh.