| Description |
227 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Prologue : little Oedipus -- A phone call and its consequences -- A natural history of artificial insemination -- Keywords from childhood -- Artificial bastards and ghost fathers -- Looking for answers -- Going to see the oracle -- Tracking down the DNA -- Opening the letter and finding the truth -- Family romance, or who is my father? -- Is DNA destiny? -- Endings and beginnings. |
| Summary |
Shortly before his father?s death, Lennard Davis received a cryptic call from his uncle Abie, who said he had a secret he wanted to tell him one day. When finally revealed, the secret--that Abie himself was Davis?s father, via donor insemination--seemed too preposterous to be true. Born in 1949, Davis wasn?t even sure that artificial insemination had existed at that time. Moreover, his uncle was mentally unstable, an unreliable witness to the past. Davis tried to erase the whole episode from his mind. Over time Davis?s doubts grew into an obsession, until finally, some twenty years after Abie?s phone call, he launched an investigation--one that took him to DNA labs and online genealogical research sites, and into intense conversations with family members whose connection to him he had begun to doubt. |
| Subject |
Davis, Lennard J., 1949-
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Fathers and sons -- Biography.
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Artificial insemination, Human -- Biography.
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DNA fingerprinting -- Popular works.
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| ISBN |
9780553805512 |
|
0553805517 |
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