I have read all of Dani Shapiro's books and though I loved them all, I think that this last one was my favorite.
Dani Shapiro grew up modern orthodox in New Jersey . She went off the derech and wrote a lot about her life and finding her life in general. She is not shomer shabbat now but she has found where she is comfortable in Judaism and is proud of where she comes from.
Shapiro's latest book is about finding out via a genealogy test that her father was not her biological father and that she was born as a result of a sperm donor because her parents were having fertility issues. This book is about that journey. The journey of finding out who her biological father was and reconciling why her parents had never told her the truth about her conception while both of her parents have been deceased for many years.
Shapiro had already written so many memoirs that it was almost fitting that such a story should be hers. In every book she recounts how people often thought she wasn't really Jewish and now she knows its because the donor was not Jewish.
Shapiro had already written so many memoirs that it was almost fitting that such a story should be hers. In every book she recounts how people often thought she wasn't really Jewish and now she knows its because the donor was not Jewish.
What is so interesting to me is how this seems like the most Jewish book she has written even as she finds out that her biological father was not. Shapiro never really says that she ever struggled with her Jewish identity , only about how she wanted to express it.
Ironically she could have lived her whole life not knowing the truth. Fortunate for here the way she found out this news was by chance and not because of a medical issue.
The book makes it seem like though she is quite cemented in her Jewishness that this revelation made her think a little about it. I went to a book event for Inheritance where she mentioned how someone asked her at another venue if she was now going to explore her Christian heritage to which she emphatically said NO. Judaism is her only identity. It is so rooted in her. She even thinks in Hebrew. This of course was the response I wanted to hear but the book for theatrics did not as clearly portray.
I really should not have doubted Shapiro. The father who raised her was the parent she was closest to. She would not be on this earth in the way she was conceived had her parents not wanted her to exist. Her family made her feel a part of them and ironically her mother who was the less Jewishly affiliated made Shapiro Jewish without question.
This book is so beautifully written. . As much as she explores her relationship to her biological father she really is writing a love letter to her father who raised her .
Ironically she could have lived her whole life not knowing the truth. Fortunate for here the way she found out this news was by chance and not because of a medical issue.
The book makes it seem like though she is quite cemented in her Jewishness that this revelation made her think a little about it. I went to a book event for Inheritance where she mentioned how someone asked her at another venue if she was now going to explore her Christian heritage to which she emphatically said NO. Judaism is her only identity. It is so rooted in her. She even thinks in Hebrew. This of course was the response I wanted to hear but the book for theatrics did not as clearly portray.
I really should not have doubted Shapiro. The father who raised her was the parent she was closest to. She would not be on this earth in the way she was conceived had her parents not wanted her to exist. Her family made her feel a part of them and ironically her mother who was the less Jewishly affiliated made Shapiro Jewish without question.
This book is so beautifully written. . As much as she explores her relationship to her biological father she really is writing a love letter to her father who raised her .
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