A Fatal Inheritance

How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery

De: Lawrence Ingrassia

Narrado por: Roger Wayne

“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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“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

"Spurred on by his family’s extraordinary experiences with cancer, Lawrence Ingrassia reports compassionately and comprehensively on the breakthroughs of genetic research into the illness. Through his eye-opening journalism, we learn how scientific progress really happens—in fits and starts and endless reversals, and with an endless capacity for hope."
—Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road

"Fortune surely frowned on the Ingrassias—a family beset by a genetic anomaly that beamed scientific light into the twisty nature of cancer—and smiled on readers, by making its central member one of America's truly great journalists. The result is an extraordinary, empathic, medical detective story and emotional roller-coast. This is a beautiful book that will break hearts and then heal them. A treasure."
—Ron Suskind, author of Life, Animated

"Lawrence Ingrassia's quest to understand what felt like a curse on his family turns out to be one of the most eye-opening stories. The portrait he draws of his family's medical mystery and the two doctors who pioneered its treatment is a masterful work of reporting and writing, filled with unflinching honesty, empathy, and wisdom. A Fatal Inheritance is a brilliant, unforgettable book that I recommend highly."
—Bryan Burrough, author of Barbarians at the Gate

Fascinating medical nonfiction

Beautifully told story of families suffering from an inherited medical disorder and the researchers looking for the cause. The author uses the story of his own extended family and of several others to make this an unusually poignant and affecting book. The writing is outstanding and the narration is perfect.

Powerful story told incredibly well

Cancer decimated the author's family, taking lives way too soon, way too often, as he recounts in this book. But this story is much bigger than that. It's an incredibly powerful tale, not just of his family, but of other families, of posing questions and seeking answers. The lyrical prose of his retelling reads like a novel, while his decades as a journalist with the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times come through in his detailed chronicling of the journey to unwrap the medical mystery of why his branch of the family (and so many other families) have been plagued by cancer. He skillfully distills medical research into everyday language so that readers can understand the science, while he pieces in families' stories so that they can empathize with the real-life toll cancer takes on so many.

Absolutely beautifully written, fascinating, poignant, tragic and unforgettable.

I am an oncology nurse practitioner and the nerd in me adores a good biomedical documentary. This is more than that, it is an odyssey, and from the moment I started it, I could not put it down. The writing is also at a level that is understandable for people without backgrounds in science, nursing or medicine.

The history of the discovery of this particularly brutal heritable cancer syndrome is absolutely fascinating and Lawrence Engrassia skillfully weaves this together with stories from the initial families studied to ascertain the cause of the syndrome with stories of his own family. The details of these families repeated suffering as family member after family member is torn from them will forever be indelibly seared into my memory.

Stunning story and great reporting

Beautifully reported book, wonderfully read by the narrator. The book intertwines the authors story of losing his entire family to cancer with the story of the epidemiologists who discovered a cancer gene, and the families they studied on their path. This book will be interesting to anyone who has lost a family member to cancer and grappled with fear and grief around that loss.

Very Interesting and Informative

I found this audio book fascinating and easy to listen to. I highly recommend this book and author.