Dani Shapiro

Our genes have a story to tell, but it may not be the story we want to hear. A few years ago, on a lark, the novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro had her DNA analyzed by a genealogy service. One of the things she learned: Her father was not her biological father. Dani discovered she wasn’t who she thought she was. Thus began her quest to uncover the secrets of her family, and to re-imagine her own story. You ca read all about it in her new book Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love.

Dani talks to Debbie about her surprising genetic inheritance. “I had always felt ‘other’ in the Shapiro family, because I looked so ‘other’.”

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