This is a book about familial cancer. While this may be of vital interest to those who share this problem or to medical people, I found it so terribly depressing that I couldn't see it through to the end. You know if you fit as consumer of this writing, or not.
The quality of the writing itself is good.

This was a hard book to read. It is equal amounts of family history and historical information on cancer. It was hard to read because of the amount of sadness that cancer has caused these families that have higher than normal occurrences of cancer in their family is absolutely heartbreaking. Children growing up with sick parents or siblings, parents raising children with reoccurring cancer, and the amount of loss of such young children and adults made it hard to read. I don’t at all regret reading it, though. It was such a well written book and very interesting, especially the history of cancer and proving the genetic link to cancer. I hope that some day in the future we have the technology to cure cancer and that it will be affordable for those who need it.

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the opportunity to read this book in advance of publication.

In 1968, at the age of 42, Ingrassia's mother died of cancer—a tragic event for any family, but unusual mostly for her young age. Cancer is common enough that all of us will be touched by it in some way or another—oneself, a loved one, etc.—and treatment options had (still have) a long way to go. But then Ingrassia's youngest sister was diagnosed with cancer and died at 24, and his other sister was diagnosed with cancer and died at 32, and his nephew got cancer when he was just 2. It didn't end there. "In the United States," writes Ingrassia, "life expectancy is nearly eighty years. In my family, not including me, the average life span was forty-five" (loc. 3997*). The odds were staggering, but at the time doctors shrugged it off as terrible luck.

But the brilliance of this book is that it is not only memoir—and I say this as someone who loves memoir—but a meticulously researched, compassionately reported dive into the history of cancer research: more specifically, how scientists came to identify what caused this rare and horrible quirk in some families' histories, and what all that research means for individuals, and families, affected by cancer.

Although Ingrassia opens with his family's story in the first chapter, it's another dozen chapters before he returns to the subject—instead he introduces other families facing staggering counts of cancer diagnoses (and deaths), sets the scene for the scientists who are some of the heroes of the story, and begins to carefully and precisely walk lay readers through the complicated science behind cancer and gene mutations. I thought this might be a book to read in small pieces, but instead I tore through it in two days. Reminiscent of "Hidden Valley Road", which explored research into schizophrenia via the lens of one family disproportionately affected by it, "A Fatal Inheritance" brings to life the drier work of lab science by putting it within the context of families—including his own—for whom cancer after cancer made the future uncertain.

It is at times hard to keep all of the names and dates straight, but Ingrassia is an award-winning journalist, and the skill and care he has put into this work shows. I'd be remiss not to note that although I found tremendous value in the research and science Ingrassia makes accessible to the lay reader, he observes toward the end that "while this is a book about scientific discovery begun by two tireless doctors, it is even more a love letter to my family, written to preserve memories for my children, and their children, and the children after them. Because I will be gone someday as well, and I don't want these memories to be gone with me" (loc. 3991).

4.5 stars; this will be a must-read for those seeking to better understand cancer and cancer research.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*I read an ARC, and quotes may not be final.

Beautifully detailed book. Beginning in the 1960s, it follows not just the family but the scientists who made the breakthroughs that are referenced in the title. Occasionally slow paced but thorough. Certainly a book of interest for those who enjoy "fascinomas" or unique medical mysteries.

Horribly fascinating and compulsively readable, A Fatal Inheritance weaves scientific research with the tragic stories of families coping with unbearable loss. In the late 1960s, when Dr. Frederick Pei Li began his research, multiple cancers in one family were considered bad luck. Dr. Li’s research led him to a family where almost every member had died of a different kind of cancer at an early age. Dr. Li suspected a genetic link. Through his work he met Dr. Joseph Fraumeni and in the following years the two discovered Li-Fraumeni syndrome, defined by a mutation in the p53 gene. This mutation meant the carrier would likely develop cancer and their descendants had a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting the defective gene. And there is, as yet, no cure. Until the gene can be modified, all those who have inherited it can do is undergo frequent testing.

Author Lawrence Ingrassia understands the effect of a defective gene. After ten years of fighting cancer, his mother died at age 42. His sister Angela died at 24, sister Gina at 32, his nephew Charlie at 39 and finally his brother Paul at 69. Lawrence Ingrassia does not have the gene mutation. He chronicles the horror his family experiences. It is particularly heart-breaking to read how, after Angela’s death, Gina adopted a healthy lifestyle with diet and exercise to ward off cancer. Charlie, disfigured by cancer in childhood, tried desperately to have a normal life.

A Fatal Inheritance has details not only of the Li-Fraumeni research but that of the many scientists studying the role genes play in cancer. It is an upsetting, informative book that at times, reads like fiction. I wish it were. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Henry Holt & Company and Lawrence Ingrassia for this ARC.

An excellent book on the history of the discovery of different genes with mutations linked to hereditary cancer risks. A person who inherits a genetic mutation from their parent will have a higher lifetime risk for certain types of cancer. A family with hereditary cancer may have many family members who have been diagnosed. The author tells the story of his family, which is heartbreaking, while also shows the tremendous courage and spirit his family members had. This story weaves his and others who have suffered similar losses along with the research and dedication of so many dedicated to ending this dreadful disease without it being dry at all. A must read for any who has suffered any loss in their family. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.