Tests, lies and DNA
Jessica Strawser explores the effect of secrets on relationships
Jessica Strawser’s new novel, “A Million Reasons Why,” may strike a nerve with readers who have used old-fashioned sleuthing, or more recently, direct-to-consumer DNA testing, to uncover family secrets. In fact,
I was drawn to Strawser’s book because in recent years I’ve met close relatives I never knew existed: A half-sister who had been surreptitiously given away to adoptive parents reached out to me, then two first cousins born out of wedlock found me through DNA testing.
While Strawser personally has never had a DNA test, her fascination with the topic was born out of the stories of real-life people, including author Dani Shapiro, who at 54 discovered through DNA testing that her father was not her biological father, and wrote about it in her memoir, “Inheritance.”
Strawser’s three previous novels, including “Not That I Could Tell,” explore secrets and lies of omission among peers — friends, spouses, relatives. “A Million Reasons Why” centers more on what happens when one generation has held back the truth. It focuses on Sela and Caroline, who through DNA testing discover they are half-sisters. Sela has irreversible kidney disease and her life is crumbling. Caroline, on the other hand, seems to have a great marriage and relationship with her parents. But everything changes when the family is gifted DNA test kits at Christmas.
Strawser, 41, who is also editor-at-large at Writer’s Digest and lives outside Cincinnati, spoke by phone recently about how much it really means to share DNA with somebody and how our parental secrets can profoundly affect their children’s lives. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
QGetting a DNA test can potentially upend your life. Yet about 1 in 5 Americans has taken a direct-to-consumer DNA test, according to an October Consumer Reports survey. Why do people do it?
AGenerally speaking, I’ve noticed that they fall into two camps. There are those who have set out to find unknown relatives — they expect they existed and receive those results with open arms. Then there are people who love genealogy but who are blindsided in unwelcomed ways and maybe wish they’d never taken the test. I thought it would be fascinating to tell a story that started out with one character in each of these camps and then in time have their roles begin to reverse in unforeseen ways. That was my initial idea and it developed from there. Q The found relationship in “A Million Reasons Why” is between two half-sisters, one of whom needs a kidney. Is it presumptuous for someone to expect a newly discovered family member to even consider being a donor?
AIt’s an impossible situation. Very early in the writing of the novel, a friend of mine who is a doctor asked me what my new novel was about. When I said there was a woman who had taken a DNA test because she let herself be talked into it, in part because she needed a potentially living organ donor match, he said, “Oh, that’s cold.” It took me aback at first because the character is so not cold.
When the story opens, she is a young mother trying to save her own life. Other people who love her are trying to save her life. She allows herself to be talked into this one step at a time — “Well, I’ll just take the test and when it comes up negative I can at least say I tried and get everyone off my back.” She is very uncomfortable with the situation. There is not necessarily a right or wrong answer to any of it. There is not necessarily a right or wrong way to feel about any of it. It’s all in a gray area. That’s what fascinates me as a writer, and that’s why I was so drawn to the topic.
QIn your previous novels, you’ve mostly explored secrets and lies between peers, but in this novel, you deal with lies of omission between parents and children. How much responsibility do parents have to their children to share their secrets, and what should children expect their parents to share with them?
AThat I can’t answer. I’m just a novelist.
It’s a lot to think about. I think we’re living in a world in which a whole generation of people are grappling with the fact that secrets from 40 years ago can now be discovered by swabbing our cheeks. It never really dawned on our parents that it would be possible for these things to come out or what the consequences would be beyond that initial decision to keep a secret. I think that’s a little bit of what happens with Caroline’s mom. You tell one little lie early on and suddenly you have become a liar. It affects both sisters, it affects Caroline’s husband, it affects an old friend and it affects Caroline’s mom.