One of the wonders of the genome is how it enables us to time-travel, both backward and forward. Scribbled within it are clues to our ancestry, which can give us an emboldening sense of continuity, coherence, place — how marvelous to imagine...

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... While it was Gessen’s misfortune to have inherited her mother’s cruel mutation [BRCA1], it was her good luck — and ours — that she also inherited her mother’s storytelling grace and critical dexterity (Yolka Gessen was a writer and a...