She Treads Softly: A Fatal Inheritance

Sunday, April 28, 2024

A Fatal Inheritance

A Fatal Inheritance by Lawrence Ingrassia
5/14/24; 320 pages
Henry Holt & Company

A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery by Lawrence Ingrassia is a very highly recommended deeply personal memoir of a family's medical tragedies merged with a medical thriller of cancer research as scientists work to discover answers.

Lawrence Ingrassia's family story is one where death from cancer is prevalent. In his family Ingrassia lost his mother, two sisters, brother, and nephew to different kinds of cancer at different points in their lives. In the 1960s his family became one of several that intrigued Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni Jr. in their research into why some families experienced so many deaths by cancer. They began collecting records and analyzing data to understand cancer clusters in some families.

They published their results in a paper which showed that there was likely a genetic component involved and this discovery was named the Li–Fraumani Syndrome. Their paper was first published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, and wasn't widely known. Later genetic researchers were intrigued by the syndrome and with help from Li and Fraumani and the samples they collected from families they were able to discover a mutation in the p53 gene. This inherited mutation is responsible for the higher risk of cancer. Its discovery was groundbreaking in cancer research and offers hope for potential future research.

Ingassia does an excellent job sharing his family's and others deeply personal and emotional stories while also covering how the cancer research of Li and Fraumeni’s and others evolved. The merging of the personal tragedies with the ground breaking discoveries work well together and help create a tension and anticipation for some hopeful discovery for a future cure. The question of genetic research in regards to ethical considerations and personal privacy is also considered. Thanks to Henry Holt & Company for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.