By Coral Gables Gazette staff
What happens when a DNA test reveals a sibling, a parent or an entire branch of the family no one knew existed?
Books & Books in Coral Gables takes up that question Thursday evening, when two contributors to a new anthology of true stories about unexpected biological relatives discuss how those discoveries can reshape identity, family and belonging.
Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship brings together 28 writers whose experiences range from years-long searches for biological relatives to sudden discoveries of parents or siblings they never knew existed. The free event begins at 7 p.m. on Aug. 13.
An anthology of unexpected family
Edited by B.K. Jackson, with a foreword by journalist Libby Copeland, Relative Strangers was published this summer by ELJ Editions. The 204-page collection examines what happens when hidden family histories surface and familiar ideas about kinship suddenly have to be reconsidered.
The contributors include adoptees, people who have searched for biological relatives and others who learned unexpectedly that a parent or sibling existed — or that someone they had always believed to be a biological parent was not. The essays address loss, longing, secrecy, discovery, estrangement and the sometimes complicated process of forming relationships with newly discovered relatives.
Jackson is the founder and editor of Severance, an online publication and community serving adoptees, donor-conceived people and those who have experienced unexpected parentage discoveries. The term NPE, commonly rendered as “not parent expected,” is used for people who discover that a presumed biological parent is not genetically related to them.
Copeland is the author of The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are, which examines the effect of consumer genetic testing on family identity and long-held secrets. Author Dani Shapiro, whose memoir Inheritance recounts her own discovery that the man who raised her was not her biological father, is among the writers who provided advance praise for the anthology.
Two contributors take the stage
Thursday’s conversation brings together contributors Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello and Dawn Davies.
Cancio-Bello is the author of Hour of the Ox, winner of the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, and co-translator of Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle, which won the 2022 Translation Grand Prize from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.
She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Knight Foundation and American Literary Translators Association. She also co-founded the Adoptee Literary Festival and serves as director of programs and marketing for Miami Book Fair, which is presenting Thursday’s program.
Davies is the author of Mothers of Sparta: A Memoir in Pieces, which won the Florida Book Award Gold Medal for General Nonfiction and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for Creative Nonfiction.
Her essays and stories have received Pushcart Special Mentions and been named Best American notables, and her work has appeared in publications including McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Missouri Review, Poetry Northwest and Narrative. Davies now lives on a farm in South Carolina.
Stories about identity after discovery
The anthology is not solely about the moment a secret is uncovered. Its larger subject is what follows.
Its writers examine the emotional consequences of discovering unknown biological relatives and the questions such revelations can raise about identity, loyalty and what makes someone family. Some accounts involve searching and reunion; others deal with rejection, estrangement or the realization that a familiar family history was incomplete.
That question — what does it mean to be family? — is the thread connecting the 28 contributions and the focus of Thursday’s discussion.
How to go…
Relative Strangers: An Evening with Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello and Dawn Davies
Thursday, Aug. 13, 7 to 8 p.m.
Books & Books
265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables
The event is free and open to the public. Books & Books asks attendees to RSVP in advance, although an RSVP does not guarantee seating and early arrival is recommended. Copies of Relative Strangers, priced at $20, will be available for purchase.
