Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

by Dani Shapiro

Is who we are the same as who we believe ourselves to be?

It turns out that it is possible to live an entire life—even an examined life, to the degree that I had relentlessly examined mine—and still not know the truth of oneself.

The people who are with us by either happenstance or design during life-altering events become woven into the fabric of those events.

Their trauma became mine—had always been mine. It was my inheritance, my lot.

gratitude and trauma weren’t mutually exclusive.

either all of us are accidents of history or none of us are.