What They Never Told Us : True Stories of Family Secrets and Hidden Identities Revealed

From acclaimed bestselling author of White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing, comes a brand new collection of stories of people uncovering their past.

“A riveting page turner . . . This book will appeal to anyone interested in tales of family secrets.” —Severance Magazine

"Masterful, inspiring, and fearless." —Kenyatta D. Berry, author of Family Tree Toolkit and host of PBS’s Genealogy Roadshow

What They Never Told Us tells the stories of ordinary people who made extraordinary, life-changing discoveries about their parentage and/or race and ethnicity that fractured their identities. The book asks the big questions: Who are we? And what is family?

Blending social history and personal narratives, each story delves into the devastating psychological trauma of uncovering a hidden family secret with all the twists and turns of a mystery novel from how the discovery was made; to why it was kept secret; to the arduous, sometimes disappointing, quest to find the biological parent or parents. To fully understand the secrecy surrounding these family secrets, the book examines pre-WWII and post-WWII attitudes toward infertility, adoption, donor conception, race and racial passing, and unmarried pregnant women.

Prefacing these harrowing narratives is the author's own confusing and sometimes painful journey to redefine her racial identity under the spotlight of public opinion. Searingly raw and honest, What They Never Told Us tells the stories that were never meant to be heard.