Inheritance by Dani Shapiro: Short Summary and Review
Inheritance is an account of Dani Shapiro’s jarring realization that her dad, deceased, is not her biological father. On a whim, she compares a DNA test with her half-sister, and finds that they do not share any relation, meaning one of them is also not related to their “social” father. As Shapiro has always been told her whole life that she doesn’t “look Jewish,” with her blonde hair and blue eyes, it’s clear that she is the outlier. Not only does she grapple with the knowledge that someone in her family has lied to her for half a century—she’s over 50 by the time she receives this news—but she also has to come to terms with a new identity: Although she is fluent in Hebrew and grew up defending her authenticity as a Jewess, she now has to accept that she is not her father’s daughter. Both of the parents who raised her have passed away, so the memoir is part emotional exposé and part gripping digital suspense.
A moment-by-moment meditation on Shapiro’s findings and feelings, the story seems to unfold in real-time. Not only do we see Shapiro clicking around on social media, trying to discern her link to the people in her DNA profile, but we also “watch” her as she peers into her bathroom mirror, reviewing the facial features that have set her apart from her family and her Jewish heritage, even before she knew the separation to be true. Although Shapiro, in the story, must relay her findings again and again in conversations she has with others, the news is delivered with nuance, subtle rephrasings and information that was withheld for exactly these moments to keep the reader engaged. Although the underlying message of the work, the epiphany Shapiro has as a character, is obvious—even though her dad wasn’t her biological father, he’s still the father who raised and loved her—the path to this realization is still surprising and raw because of Shapiro’s honesty, conversational language and suspenseful sequence.