A Fatal Inheritance
How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery
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A Fatal Inheritance
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Narrated by:
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Roger Wayne
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Written by:
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Lawrence Ingrassia
About this listen
Long-listed, BookPage Best Books of the Year, 2024
National Book Critics Circle Award nominee, 2024
Long-listed, Amazon.com Best Books of the Year, 2024
Long-listed, NPR Best Book of the Year, 2024
"Listeners will find A Fatal Inheritance to be an effective overview of research on cancer and hereditary predisposition, one that achieves serious investigation while remaining intensely human.”—BookPage
Weaving his own moving family story with a sweeping history of cancer research, Lawrence Ingrassia delivers an intimate, gripping tale that sits at the intersection of memoir and medical thriller
Ingrassia lost his mother, two sisters, brother, and nephew to cancer—different cancers developing at different points throughout their lives. And while highly unusual, his family is not the only one to wonder whether their heartbreak is the result of unbelievable bad luck, or if there might be another explanation.
Through meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Ingrassia takes us from the 1960s—when Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni Jr. first met, not yet knowing that they would help make a groundbreaking discovery that would affect cancer patients for decades to come—to present day, as Ingrassia and countless others continue to unpack and build upon Li and Fraumeni’s initial discoveries, and to understand what this means for their families.
In the face of seemingly unbearable loss, Ingrassia holds onto hope. He urges us to “fight like Charlie,” his nephew who battled cancer his entire life starting with a rare tumor in his cheek at the age of two—and to look toward the future, as gene sequencing, screening protocols, CRISPR gene editing, and other developing technologies may continue to extend lifespans and perhaps, one day, even offer cures.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.
©2024 Lawrence Ingrassia (P)2024 Macmillan AudioWhat the critics say
“A Fatal Inheritance by Lawrence Ingrassia is a compelling personal chronicle of tragedy and triumph. It captures both the ineffable pain of families riddled with cancers and the remarkable research over the past half century by scientists determined to help them.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
"When two young doctors came across a family riddled with cancer for generations, they wondered why and began a decades long search for the answer. In A Fatal Inheritance, a riveting narrative of their quest, Lawrence Ingrassia intertwines a deeply personal and tearful story of unbearable family loss with an inspiring story of scientific discovery that revolutionized the understanding and treatment of cancer."—Walter Isaacson, author of Elon Musk, The Code Breaker and Steve Jobs
"When Lawrence Ingrassia lost his mother, sisters, brother and nephew to cancer, was it appallingly bad luck, or was there a common cause? This is the story of a family tragedy, a medical mystery, and the painstaking work of insightful scientists. By turns heartbreaking and hopeful, A Fatal Inheritance is a story of mortal loss and human resilience."—Geraldine Brooks, author of Horse and March