Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro. Novelist and journalist Shapiro becomes a memoirist with a story of origin that fits perfectly with the increasing popularity of ancestry searches. As many have done in recent years, Shapiro - on little more than a whim - sends her DNA in for analysis. What she discovers, at age 54, is a real shocker. Her beloved father, who raised her in the Orthodox Jewish culture, is not actually her biological dad. That honor, she later learns, belongs to a sperm sample from the 1960s that was artificially inseminated in her mother. After recovering from the jaw-dropping news and unable to confront her now-dead parents, Shapiro the writer realizes what a great story this could be. So she sets out to track down her birth father while dealing with the prospect of a whole new identity. In doing so, she redefines - at least for herself - the true meaning of family.  

 

Among the praiseworthy reviews was this from Newsday last year: "[A] swift moving narrative of profound personal disorientation. Just as you think you've crested the big reveal, Shapiro builds more tension, chapter by short chapter; she keeps you close as she feels her way through unfamiliar terrain."  

 

 

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land. 

This memoir about working as a maid doubles as a gritty exploration of poverty in America. While describing her experience as a single mother making ends meet as a housekeeper, Land expands her book to shine a spotlight on the "servant" worker and those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. It's an exhausting, terrifying, and lonely life for workers who are often one missed paycheck away from destitution while being ignored or just plain unseen by their employers. Land the reporter also chronicles government services - or the lack of same - for the working poor in this country. 

 

One of the book's biggest fans added Maid to his 2019 Summer Reading List with this endorsement: "A single mother's personal, unflinching look at America's class divide, a description of the tightrope many families walk just to get by, and a reminder of the dignity of all work."   - President Barack Obama