'Inheritance' Author Dani Shapiro Speaks At Laguna Beach Books

LAGUNA BEACH, CA —Have you ever wondered what would happen if your genealogy results came back other than what you bargained for? On Friday, New York Times Bestselling author Dani Shapiro appears at Laguna Beach Books to discuss all that and more with: "Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love." This is Shapiro's 10th novel.

The story resonates with her audience, and is truly a memoir that reads like a thriller, according to reviews.

Ticket holders will receive a copy of the book, as well as be invited to hear details on Shapiro's journey to write this stunning and eye-opening read for $27. As of Tuesday, standing room only tickets remained, Danielle Bauter of Laguna Beach Books told Patch.

Event date: Friday, Feb. 15 - 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Event address: Laguna Beach Books, 1200 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach

About Inheritance:

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.

Dani Shapiro is the author of the memoirs: Hourglass, Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, as well as five novels, including Black & White and Family History.

Also an essayist and a journalist, Shapiro's short fiction, essays, and journalistic pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, One Story, Elle, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, the op-ed pages of the New York Times, and many other publications, according to her website.

She has taught in the writing programs at Columbia, NYU, the New School, and Wesleyan University; she is cofounder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. She lives with her family in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

Her new podcast series, "Family Secrets" debuts Feb. 14.

Read for more information on Dani Shapiro, 'Inheritance,' and other books here.

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