
Inheritance
A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love
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Narrated by:
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Dani Shapiro
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By:
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Dani Shapiro
About this listen
An Instant New York Times Best Seller
A Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and National Indie Best Seller
A Best Book of the Year According to Elle, Real Simple, and Kirkus Reviews
"Memoir gold: a profound and exquisitely rendered exploration of identity and the true meaning of family." (People Magazine)
"Beautifully written and deeply moving - it brought me to tears more than once." (Ruth Franklin, The New York Times Book Review)
From the acclaimed, best-selling memoirist, novelist - "a writer of rare talent" (Cheryl Strayed) - and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets, comes a memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test: an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love.
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 an audiobook 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 50 years, years she had spent writing brilliantly, and compulsively, on themes of identity and family history. It is an audiobook 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.
©2019 Dani Shapiro (P)2019 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
New York Times Editors' Choice
A Washington Post, Vulture, Bustle, Real Simple, PopSugar, and LitHub Most Anticipated Book of 2019
“[An] engrossing, compassionate memoir.... As in the best writing on the self, the point is the integrity of her search.” —Alexandra Schwartz, The New Yorker
“The writing is that of a true storyteller who will not stop until she has bored down to the bottom of where she came from, and in this she is at her narrative best.” —Oprah Magazine
“As compulsively readable as a mystery novel, while exploring the deeper mysteries of identity and family and truth itself... a story told with great insight and honesty and heart.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Editor's Pick
The dark side of DNA testing
"When I first heard about Inheritance, I have to admit I wrinkled my nose a little—hadn’t I already listened to enough memoirs about FAMILY SECRETS and COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIPS? I mean, sure, it’s one of my favorite sub-genres, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Inheritance, as it turns out, is a perfect little jewel of a memoir. Well into her adult life, Dani Shapiro took a DNA test on a whim—only to discover that her beloved Orthodox Jewish father was not, in fact, her biological father. Naturally, inner turmoil ensues as she sets out to uncover the truth about her past. I don’t know how she does it, but Shapiro’s memoir is somehow an impossible combination of beautiful words, soul-searching insight, and fast-paced thrills. *And* her narration is amazing too—what??! I can think of only one plausible explanation: she must be some kind of word sorcerer."
—Rachel S., Audible Editor
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- By: Benjamin Gilmer
- Narrated by: Benjamin Gilmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Fresh out of medical residency, Dr. Benjamin Gilmer joined a rural North Carolina clinic only to find that its previous doctor shared his last name. Dr. Vince Gilmer was loved and respected by the community—right up until he strangled his ailing father and then returned to the clinic for a regular week of work. Vince’s eventual arrest for murder shocked his patients. How could their beloved doctor be capable of such violence? The deeper Benjamin looked into Vince’s case, the more he became obsessed with discovering what pushed a good man toward darkness.
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Compelling Story Turned Tedious
- By Gypsy Wife on 07-15-22
By: Benjamin Gilmer
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The Mind and the Moon
- My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches
- By: Daniel Bergner
- Narrated by: Daniel Bergner
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon within the decade. But today, psychiatric cures continue to elude us—as does the mind itself. Why is it that we still don’t understand how the mind works? What is the difference between the mind and the brain? And given all that we still don’t know, how can we make insightful, transformative choices about our psychiatric conditions?
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Narration
- By M. Morgan on 09-06-22
By: Daniel Bergner
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Ruse
- Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street
- By: Robert Kerbeck
- Narrated by: Robert Kerbeck
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In the world of high finance, multibillion-dollar Wall Street banks greedily guard their secrets. Enter Robert Kerbeck, a working actor who made his real money lying on the phone, charming people into revealing their employers’ most valuable information. In this exhilarating memoir that will appeal to fans of The Wolf of Wall Street and Catch Me If You Can, unsuspecting receptionists, assistants, and bigshot executives all fall victim to “the Ruse.”
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Great story terrible voice
- By Tmiddleton on 06-08-23
By: Robert Kerbeck
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Wild Ride
- A Memoir of I.V. Drips and Rocket Ships
- By: Hayley Arceneaux
- Narrated by: Hayley Arceneaux
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In this boldly optimistic debut memoir, Hayley Arceneaux details how she overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to grab hold of a life greater than she’d ever imagined. With her signature upbeat messaging, Arceneaux recounts her odyssey, from her cancer diagnosis at age ten and the yearlong treatment that inspired her goal of working with pediatric cancer patients, to living through her father’s terminal cancer diagnosis, to getting her lifelong dream job at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a physician assistant.
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Great outsider’s perspective on splaceflight
- By JUSTIN on 11-10-24
By: Hayley Arceneaux
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Unvarnished
- A Gimlet-Eyed Look at Life Behind the Bar
- By: Eric Alperin, Deborah Stoll
- Narrated by: Eric Alperin
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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When it opened a decade ago, the acclaimed Los Angeles speakeasy The Varnish - owned, designed, and managed by award-winning cocktail aficionado Eric Alperin - quickly became the stylish standard bearer for modern bars. Unvarnished is a candid, voice-driven, no-holds-barred look at the workings of a bar, and the foundation of The Varnish’s success: attention to hospitality and an abiding belief in the nobility of service.
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One of the most accurate accounts of being behind a bar
- By Brian T on 07-14-23
By: Eric Alperin, and others
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I Cried to Dream Again
- Trafficking, Murder, and Deliverance - A Memoir
- By: Sara Kruzan, Cori Thomas
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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There is perhaps no crime more disturbing than the abuse of a child—and no court cases as upsetting as those in which juveniles who have faced abuse are tried for fighting back. In this gripping memoir Sara Kruzan, a survivor of childhood abuse and sex trafficking, tells the honest, disturbing, and ultimately empowering story of her journey from abuse to incarceration without parole for killing her abuser to finally gaining her liberation.
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A True Warrior
- By Thixso on 02-27-24
By: Sara Kruzan, and others
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Quitter
- A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery
- By: Erica C. Barnett
- Narrated by: Jean Ann Douglass
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A startlingly frank memoir, Quitter documents one woman's struggles with alcoholism and recovery, with essential new insights into addiction and treatment.
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Long Drunkaloug But Well Defined
- By Danielle T on 11-16-20
By: Erica C. Barnett
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The Last Season
- By: Eric Blehm
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Destined to become a classic of adventure literature, The Last Season examines the extraordinary life of legendary backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson and his mysterious disappearance in California's unforgiving Sierra Nevada - mountains as perilous as they are beautiful. Eric Blehm's masterful work is a gripping detective story interwoven with the riveting biography of a complicated, original, and wholly fascinating man.
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Well Written Character Study of an NPS Ranger
- By Kathy in CA on 06-23-16
By: Eric Blehm
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Nephew
- A Memoir in 4-Part Harmony
- By: M.K. Asante
- Narrated by: M.K. Asante, Dion Graham, Adenrele Ojo, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Waiting in the emergency room at Temple University Hospital in North Philadelphia where his eighteen-year-old nephew, Nasir, lay unconscious after being shot nine times, MK Asante began pouring his heart and soul into a series of letters to a beautiful, dying Black boy so full of life. As Nasir fought for survival, MK realized there was so much—too much—that he had kept from his nephew, starting with the truth about his father, MK’s brother, Uzi, whom Nasir had never met. MK could no longer remain silent because in many ways, his nephew was repeating the mistakes of the past.
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Thank You Mr. Asante
- By Anonymous User on 04-23-25
By: M.K. Asante
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A Quantum Life
- My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars
- By: Hakeem Oluseyi, Joshua Horwitz
- Narrated by: Hakeem Oluseyi
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Navigating poverty, violence, and instability, a young James Plummer had two guiding stars - a genius IQ and a love of science. But a bookish nerd is a soft target, and James faced years of bullying and abuse. As he struggled to survive his childhood in some of the country’s toughest urban neighborhoods in New Orleans, Houston, and LA, and later in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, he adopted the persona of “gangsta nerd” - dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that model Einstein’s theory of relativity.
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Just WOW
- By Anonymous User on 07-16-21
By: Hakeem Oluseyi, and others
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A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves
- One Family and Migration in the 21st Century
- By: Jason DeParle
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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When Jason DeParle moved into the Manila slums with Tita Comodas and her family three decades ago, he never imagined his reporting on them would span three generations and turn into the defining chronicle of a new age - the age of global migration. In a monumental book that gives new meaning to "immersion journalism", DeParle paints an intimate portrait of an unforgettable family as they endure years of sacrifice and separation, willing themselves out of shantytown poverty into a new global middle class.
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Excellent and Important
- By Booklover on 03-22-20
By: Jason DeParle
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Signal Fires
- A Novel
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Dani Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Division Street is full of secrets. An impulsive lie begets a secret—one which will forever haunt the Wilf family. And the Shenkmans, who move into the neighborhood many years later, bring secrets of their own.. Spanning fifty kaleidoscopic years, on a street—and in a galaxy—where stars collapse and stories collide, these two families become bound in ways they never could have imagined. Urgent and compassionate, Signal Fires is a magical story for our times, a literary tour de force by a masterful storyteller at the height of her powers.
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Depressing, poorly read
- By Arden Mahaffey on 11-02-22
By: Dani Shapiro
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Becoming Dr. Q
- My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon
- By: Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, Mim Eichler Rivas
- Narrated by: Henry Levya
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Today he is known as Dr. Q, an internationally renowned neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who leads cutting-edge research to cure brain cancer. But not too long ago, he was Freddy, a 19-year-old undocumented migrant worker toiling in the fields of Central California. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa tells his amazing life story - from his impoverished childhood in the tiny village of Palaco, Mexico, to his harrowing border crossing and his transformation from illegal immigrant to American citizen and gifted student at the University of California at Berkeley and at Harvard Medical School.
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Thank Heaven for Mexican Immigrants
- By DiK on 06-01-24
By: Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, and others
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Hidden Valley Road
- Inside the Mind of an American Family
- By: Robert Kolker
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their 12 children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the 10 Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic.
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A story you've never heard before
- By Kelley Cox on 04-19-20
By: Robert Kolker
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Devotion
- A Memoir
- By: Dani Shapiro
- Narrated by: Dani Shapiro
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In her midforties and settled into the responsibilities and routines of adulthood, Dani Shapiro found herself with more questions than answers. Was this all life was - a hodgepodge of errands, dinner dates, e-mails, meetings, to-do lists? What did it all mean? Having grown up in a deeply religious and traditional family, Shapiro had no personal sense of faith, despite repeated attempts to create a connection to something greater.
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Superb
- By Sara Gottfried MD on 11-09-15
By: Dani Shapiro
Of my own biological father I found this work so very interesting. The vivid and lucid descriptions of a trauma so deep is purely enjoyable and puts you in the center of the controlled chaos of having your entire existence tilled and replanted. A must- listen/read - you won’t regret it.
Wow!
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Wonderful!
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Excellent
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I laughed, I cried. Memorable memoir.
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Gripping book even better when read by the author
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Finding out who you are
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great subject but a tad redundant
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Excellent Writer, Excellent Listen
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I love Dani
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Could Have Been My Story
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